"Have you suggested this idea to the chef de la sûreté?" asked Glynn coldly.
"Why should you think so?"
"Because he talked to me of Lambert's concealments as militating against the success of the search, just after you left him."
Deering's brows met in a fierce, quick frown, and then resumed their ordinary haughty composure. "Yes; I thought it well to warn him. I am even now endeavoring to sift a curious story about Lambert; it may not be true, but I am a good deal concerned at this disappearance of his daughter, and, I think, so are you. She is a fascinating morsel of female flesh, and it is maddening to see the prize you had marked for your own carried off under your very eyes. Really there is no line deep enough to fathom a woman."
"I never marked Miss Lambert as my own," said Glynn angrily. "I object to your mode of mentioning her. As to Lambert, no one can doubt the unfortunate man's despair and distress. I do not believe that Miss Lambert left her home willingly, unless decoyed by false pretences."
"Be that as it may, I would give a good deal to know where she is. I believe she is in England; she was brought up there, I believe. Well, I cross to-night, and will set the police at work so soon as I get to London. Shall you be much longer here?"
"My movements are uncertain," returned Glynn stiffly.
"You'll wait and assist the bereaved father, I presume," said Deering, with an unpleasant smile. "By the way, Vincent has returned, and is awfully cut up about the affair. Vincent was, I fancy, a suitor; might have been a decent match for Miss Lambert; he is a shrewd fellow. But you are in a hurry, I will not detain you."
He bid Glynn "good-morning" with courteous friendliness, and left him half-maddened with torturing waves of doubt, which seemed rising on all sides.
Another long miserable day, its only solace a visit to poor Madame Weber and Celestine, who talked of the "dear lost child" with unbounded panegyric and floods of tears.