It was Fate. He had felt it from the very first, and now he was sure of it.
How would it end? How could it end?
Paul Zalenska was very young—oh, very young, indeed!
CHAPTER VII
The next day Verdayne and his young companion were introduced to Mr. Ledoux and his guest.
Gilbert Ledoux, a reserved man evidently descended from generations of thinking people, was apparently worried, for his face bore unmistakable signs of some mental disturbance. Paul Zalenska was struck by the haunted expression of what must naturally have been a grave countenance. It was not guilt, for he had not the face of a man pursued by conscience, but it certainly was fear—a real fear. And Paul wondered.
As for the Count de Roannes, the Boy dismissed him at once as unworthy of further consideration. He was brilliantly, even artificially polished—glaringly ultra-fashionable, ostentatiously polite and suave. In the lines of his bestial face he bore the records of a lifetime's profligacy and the black tales of habitual self-indulgence. Paul hated him instinctively and wondered how a man of Ledoux's unmistakable refinement could tolerate him for a moment.
It was not until the middle of the following afternoon that Opal Ledoux appeared on deck, when her father, with an air of pride, mingled with a certain curious element of timidity, presented to her in due form both the Englishman and his friend.