“Probably. The police are more or less at sea in a case like this where the man wanted is of high social standing, high enough, that is, to be a guest at Vaux House. I appreciate their difficulties, but do not mean to let them drop the search. I saw Sir Henry Ferrars about it yesterday.”
“How good you are,” she said, “to take all this trouble for me.”
“For you?” He bent forward. “Could I do otherwise? Have I not the best of reasons?”
“I don’t know,” she replied, perhaps because she had to say something.
“You might know if you cared, Countess,” he said in a low voice. “And you might tell me. I have been happy in the thought of your promise.”
“My promise? How well Fräulein von Hochstadt plays.”
“I cannot hear her,” he replied, in a passionate whisper, “when I have your voice to listen to.”
Alexia laughed. Her implied promise and her own happiness disarmed her. She could but temporize with the surrender which was not to be refused.
“My voice? You will shame me into silence if it prevents your listening to the loveliest thing Tchaikovsky ever wrote.”
“There are,” he returned, “times when even the genius of music must go unheeded.”