"And they have known of this"—she nodded at the eagle-wings—"while I have been kept in ignorance! How long?"
"Not quite a fortnight. Don't be unreasonable, dear!"
The new tone stung. Did a yellow star upon the cuffs and shoulder-straps and a pair of white wings on the left breast mean so much to him that her just claims upon his confidence seemed wanting in reason now? Anger and resentment choked her as he added:
"I am here now, as it happens, because I'm crossing the Channel to-morrow at peep o' day." Something in her pale face made him add: "Don't worry!—I'm likely to be back again by nightfall. That's what I've rushed in here to tell you, though I've a man in tow, a Wing Commander of the French S. Aë. Hot from the Front and just landed at Hendon. I had to take him in my car to his Embassy, and now I've got to find him a room at an hotel. When I've done it I'm coming back here to talk to you. Where on earth has my man got to? Why, there he is, talking to Lady Norwater. The little chap with the grey moustache and the gold-banded képi."
"I am honoured by Madame's gracious remembrance," the person indicated could be heard protesting, during an instant's lull in the Babel of voices round. "But my own—a thousand pardons! is less accurate."
"Oh!" Margot expostulated, "but you can't have forgotten. That Sunday of the Grande Semaine—when you were in the Bois, timing a Flying Officer who was testing an English invention—a sort of a——"
"But assuredly, Madame!" His quick nod and the gesture of his gloved hand summoned up the scene vividly. "I remember, but perfectly, though much water has rolled under the bridges since that day. And Milord—Madame's husband?"
"He's at the Front," Margot explained, "wherever the Front is!"
"Unfortunately at the moment," returned the suave voice, "the Front is everywhere. It is easy to find without binoculars. Adieu, Madame. Merci bien de la souvenir si gracieuse, dites mes amitiés à Monsieur." And in another moment he arrived beside Sherbrand, exclaiming with his vivacious shrug and gesture: "My faith, my friend, your London Cercle des Dames is a veritable Paradise of Mahommed. Now in Paris, at least before the War—instead of ten thousand houris to every true Believer, one counted at least three Adams to every Eve. But I observe your search has been successful. Will you not present me to Mademoiselle your fiancée?"
And the dapper middle-aged Wing Commander in the gold-banded képi, whose dark plain uniform displayed the gold badge of the Service Aëronautique under the Cross of the Legion of Honour, was introduced as Captain Raymond by an off-hand young Briton who comprehended not in the least the immense condescension that had prompted the request.