“My dear Bertram! Fearfully sorry for keeping you waiting. The Ambassador is as garrulous as an old maid this morning.”
So he made the amende honorable, holding out his hand to Bertram with the friendliest gesture. Then he sat on the edge of a Louis Quinze table, and offered Bertram a cigarette.
“Where’s Joyce?” asked Bertram, abruptly.
Kenneth did not seem quite sure at the moment.
“Wafted away to a château in Picardy, I believe. Yes, I understand she’s staying a while with the old Marquis de Plumoison and his charming daughter, Yvonne, to say nothing of Jérome, the young and handsome Vicomte.”
These names meant something to Bertram. Once, in time of war, he had been billeted for two months outside the Château de Plumoison, and with kind permission of the old Marquis, had shot rabbits in the park. He remembered Yvonne de Plumoison, and her kindness to young British officers like himself. Most of them had fallen in love with her for a week or two.
“What about Lady Ottery?”
“Gone for one night only, en route for merry England, where your worthy father-in-law is suffering from that vulgar complaint, influenza. But, my dear fellow, don’t you get the family bulletin?”
“I’ve been wandering,” said Bertram. He flushed deeply at Kenneth’s question, and couldn’t tell whether it held an underlying sarcasm, or was asked in simplicity. Perhaps Joyce hadn’t told Kenneth how hideously they had quarrelled that night at Holme Ottery, nor how complete had been their estrangement. It would be like Joyce to keep her own counsel, and put a gay face upon their separation. And yet she was so intimate in friendship with Kenneth that if any man knew, he would. In any case he must have guessed, known, indeed, without guessing, that “something” had happened to bring Joyce to Paris without her husband.
“Come and dine with me to-night,” said Kenneth. “I’m entertaining a few friends at the Griffon, a chic little place round the corner.”