He was redder than ever.
"Because it wasn't for you to say. It is an order from my Chiefs—don't you understand?"
She did not care that the French officer was smiling. She would have liked to have struck him in his merrily-crinkled face. Wretch! to have blurted the truth at her that Alan had hidden. What was he saying:
"Permit, Mademoiselle, that I make my adieux. I go to secure an apartment where I may repose myself." He looked at Sherbrand, saying in his cool tone of authority: "The Aldebaran,—that is in the next street and a good hotel, is it not so? A little sleep will not come amiss after a cutlet and a demi-bouteille. And whilst I eat we will settle our affaires. Eh, mon lieutenant?"
His gloved hand took Sherbrand neatly by the elbow. He was skilfully steering him towards the doorway when Patrine, white and flaming, placed herself in their path.
"My affairs come first!" she was beginning.
"Shut up!" came from Sherbrand, in an exasperated aside whisper. "My duty comes before you—or anything in the world. It should come first for you if you cared a damn for me!"
No one but Raymond had overheard the curious, fierce colloquy. She felt literally scorched by the hot look of anger. She knew an agony like the tearing of the tissues of the flesh when Sherbrand passed her and went out with that gloved hand of authority upon his arm.
"Women are the devil!" he thought bitterly, as he opened the door of the runabout Ford to admit the French Staff Officer. "She'd had a shock in being told the news so suddenly; but to ballyrag me—to make me look such a thundering idiot before him!"
He swung the crank with violence and wrenched angrily at the levers when he took the driving-seat. A gloved hand patted his arm, and Raymond's voice said in his ear: