Like all clumsy persons Adelle lied and lied badly. She had not been on the road since she took Eveline to the Casino. Pussy must have been mistaken. Miss Comstock did not press the point, but Irene Paul looked at Adelle and smiled wickedly. Adelle knew that she had been betrayed and her heart sank. Presently Miss Comstock began to talk about the red-haired artist who was living in a picturesque cottage out on the Pluydell road. A very ordinary young American, she observed cuttingly. Had the girls seen him sketching? Adelle knew that the blood was mounting to her pale face, and she bent her head over her food. The end had come.
That evening they went to the Casino to hear the music, and by chance Archie was there, too, and threw self-conscious glances towards their table. Between the soothing strains of Franz Lehr, Pussy whispered into Adelle's ear,—
"Why don't you bow to your young friend? He looks as if he wanted to join us."
Adelle gazed at her tormentor pitifully, but said nothing. The rest of the evening she sat in cold misery trying to think what might happen, resolved that in any case the worst should not happen: she would not lose her Archie. She returned to the villa in dumb pain to await in her room the expected visit. She did not even undress, preferring to be ready for instant action. Soon there was a knock and Pussy entered. She was in her dressing-gown and looked formidable and unlovely to the girl.
"Adelle," she said with a sneer, sitting down before the fire, "I thought you knew too much to do this sort of thing."
Adelle was silent.
"And such a common bounder, too!"
It was Irene Paul's opprobrious epithet, which Adelle was beginning to comprehend. She winced, but made no reply.
"You might easily get yourself into serious trouble, my dear, with a man like that."
Adelle cowered under the stings of her lash and said nothing.