Gray laughed more heartily than he had laughed that night, glancing in Seton’s direction.
“So much for your taste in cigars!” he cried
“Oh!” said Margaret, “I’m sure it’s not Mr. Seton’s cigar. It isn’t a smell of tobacco.”
“I don’t believe they’re made of tobacco!” cried Gray, laughing louder yet, although his merriment was forced.
Seton smiled good-naturedly at the joke, but he had perceived at the moment of Margaret’s entrance the fact that her gaiety also was assumed. Serious business had dictated her visit, and he wondered the more to note how deeply this odor, real or fancied, seemed to intrigue her.
She sat down in the chair which Gray placed by the fireside, and her cousin unceremoniously slid the brown packet of cigarettes across the little table in her direction.
“Try one of these, Margaret,” he said. “They are great, and will quite drown the unpleasant odor of which you complain.”
Whereupon the observant Seton saw a quick change take place in the girl’s expression. She had the same clear coloring as her cousin, and now this freshness deserted her cheeks, and her pretty face became quite pale. She was staring at the brown packet. “Where did you get them?” she asked quietly.
A smile faded from Gray’s lips. Those five words had translated him in spirit to that green-draped room in which Sir Lucien Pyne was lying dead. He glanced at Seton in the appealing way which sometimes made him appear so boyish.
“Er—from Pyne,” he replied. “I must tell you, Margaret—”