"He is, most decidedly. He dined with us last evening. Laffie Ashton called; so I succeeded in getting the earl away from Dolores. We had a most satisfying little tete-a-tete. I led him into explaining everything."
"Everything?" queried Genevieve.
"Yes, everything, my dear. His aloofness since you reached Aden has been due merely to his high sense of honor,—to an absurd but chivalrous agreement with that fellow to not press his suit until after your arrival home. At Aden he had given the man his word—"
"At Aden?" interrupted Genevieve. "How could that be, when Tom left the ship at Port Mozambique?"
"He didn't. It seems that the fellow was aboard all the time, hiding in the steerage or stoke-hole, or somewhere—no doubt to spy on you and Lord Avondale."
Genevieve averted her head and murmured in a half whisper: "He was aboard all that time, and never came up for a breath of air all those smothering days! I remember Lord James speaking of how hot and vile it was down in the forecastle. This explains why he went forward so much!"
"It explains why he did not book passage with you from Aden—why he did not hasten to you at Lady Chetwynd's—all because of his chivalrous but mistaken sense of loyalty to that low fellow."
"If you please, Aunt Amice," said Genevieve, in a tone as incisive as it was quiet, "you will remember that I esteem Mr. Blake."
Mrs. Gantry stared over her half-raised lorgnette. She had never before known her niece to be other than the very pattern of docility.
"Well!" she remarked, and, after a little pause; "Fortunately, that absurd agreement is now at an end. The earl intimated that he would call on you this afternoon. I am sure, my dear—"