“Well, perhaps it has caused most of the trouble in your life.”
She looked down.
“Our best gifts have their—what shall I say—their shady side, I suppose. And we seem to have to pay very often for what are thought of as gifts. But now I must tell you.”
“Yes.”
And then he began to relate to her, swiftly although he was old, the events of his mission. She listened, and while she listened she sat very still. She had looked up. Her eyes were fixed upon him. Presently he reached the point in his narrative where Arabian walked into Dick Garstin’s studio. Then she moved. She seemed suddenly seized with an uncontrollable restlessness. He went on without looking at her, but he heard her movements, the rustle of her gown, the touch of her hand on a sofa cushion, on the tea-table, the chink of moved china, touching other china. And two or three times he heard the faint sound of her breathing. He knew she was suffering intensely, and he believed it was because of the haunting, inexorable remembrance of the enticement that abominable fellow, Arabian, had had for her. But he had to go on. And he went on till he came to the scene in the flat at Rose Tree Gardens.
“You—you went to his room!” she then said, interrupting him.
“Yes.”
He heard her sigh. But she said nothing more. He told what had happened in the flat, but not fully. He said nothing of Arabian’s mention of her name, but he did tell her that he himself had spoken of her, had said that he was a friend of hers. And finally he told her how, carried away by indignation, he had spoken of his and Miss Van Tuyn’s knowledge that Arabian had stolen her jewels.
“I didn’t mean to tell him that,” he added. “But—well, it came out. I—I hope you forgive me?”
He did not wait for her answer, but told her of his abrupt departure from the flat, and of his subsequent visit to Miss Van Tuyn, of what he had learnt at the hotel, and of what he had done there.