Yet I was glad he had asked me to luncheon—glad because I liked him and glad because I dislike mysteries. Though you may think me very dense for not having thoroughly understood Pethel in the course of my first meeting with him, the fact is that I was only aware, and that dimly, of something more in him than he had cared to reveal—some veil behind which perhaps lurked his right to the title so airily bestowed on him by Grierson. I assured myself, as I walked home, that if veil there was, I should to-morrow find an eyelet. But one's intuition when it is off duty seems always a much more powerful engine than it does on active service; and next day, at sight of Pethel awaiting me outside his hotel, I became less confident. His, thought I, was a face which, for all its animation, would tell nothing—nothing, at any rate, that mattered. It expressed well enough that he was pleased to see me; but for the rest I was reminded that it had a sort of frank inscrutability. Besides, it was at all points so very usual a face—a face that couldn't (so I then thought), even if it had leave to, betray connection with a "great character." It was a strong face, certainly; but so are yours and mine.
And very fresh it looked, though, as he confessed, Pethel had sat up in "that beastly baccarat-room" till five A.M. I asked, had he lost? Yes, he had lost steadily for four hours (proudly he laid stress on this), but in the end—well, he had won it all back "and a bit more." "By the way," he murmured as we were about to enter the hall, "don't ever happen to mention to my wife what I told you about that Argentine deal. She's always rather nervous about—investments. I don't tell her about them. She's rather a nervous woman altogether, I'm sorry to say."
This did not square with my preconception of her. Slave that I am to traditional imagery, I had figured her as "flaunting," as golden-haired, as haughty to most men, but with a provocative smile across the shoulder for some. Nor, indeed, did her husband's words save me the suspicion that my eyes deceived me when anon I was presented to a very pale, small lady whose hair was rather white than gray. And the "little daughter!" This prodigy's hair was as yet "down," but looked as if it might be up at any moment: she was nearly as tall as her father, whom she very much resembled in face and figure and heartiness of hand-shake. Only after a rapid mental calculation could I account for her.
"I must warn you, she's in a great rage this morning," said her father. "Do try to soothe her." She blushed, laughed, and bade her father not be so silly. I asked her the cause of her great rage. She said:
"He only means I was disappointed. And he was just as disappointed as
I was. WEREN'T you, now, Father?"
"I suppose they meant well, Peggy," he laughed.
"They were QUITE right," said Mrs. Pethel, evidently not for the first time.
"They," as I presently learned, were the authorities of the bathing-establishment. Pethel had promised his daughter he would take her for a swim; but on their arrival at the bathing-cabins they were ruthlessly told that bathing was defendu a cause du mauvais temps. This embargo was our theme as we sat down to luncheon. Miss Peggy was of opinion that the French were cowards. I pleaded for them that even in English watering-places bathing was forbidden when the sea was VERY rough. She did not admit that the sea was very rough to-day. Besides, she appealed to me, where was the fun of swimming in absolutely calm water? I dared not say that this was the only sort of water I liked to swim in.
"They were QUITE right," said Mrs. Pethel again.
"Yes, but, darling Mother, you can't swim. Father and I are both splendid swimmers."