Throughout this conversation Desmond seemed to hear in his ears Barbara’s words: “That woman’s afraid of your friend!” He divined that for some reason or other, Strangwise wanted to create a bad impression in his mind about the dancer. He scanned Maurice’s face narrowly. Its impenetrability was absolute. There was nothing to be gleaned from those careless, smiling features.
“Well,” said Desmond, getting up, “nous verrons. I shall have to make a bolt for it now if I don’t want to miss my train. Good-bye, Maurice, and I hope you’ll get some birds!”
“Thanks, old man. Au revoir, and take care of yourself. My salaams to the General!”.
They shook hands warmly, then Desmond grabbed his box of cigarettes in its neat white wrapper with the bold red seals and hurried off to his room.
Strangwise stood for a moment gazing after him. He was no longer the frank, smiling companion of a minute before. His mouth was set hard and his chin stuck out at a defiant angle.
He bent over the table and picked up a white paper package sealed with bold red seals. He poised it for a moment in his hands while a flicker of a smile stole into the narrow eyes and played for an instant round the thin lips. Then, with a quick movement, he thrust the little package into the side pocket of his tunic and buttoned the flap.
Whistling a little tune, he went on with his packing.
CHAPTER IX.
METAMORPHOSIS
It was a clear, cold night. A knife-edge icy wind blew from the north-east and kept the lanyards dismally flapping on the flag-mast over the customs house. The leave train lay in the station within a biscuit’s throw of the quayside and the black, blank Channel beyond, a long line of cheerfully illuminated windows that to those returning from leave seemed as the last link with home.
The Corporal of Military Police, who stood at the gangway examining the passes, stopped Desmond Okewood as the latter held out his pass into the rays of the man’s lantern.