“Yes, doubtless.”
I thought I perceived a greater interest striving to suppress itself in him; I looked at him sharply. “Just why, Mr. Maryvale, are we all agog over this gentleman’s absence?”
He was abashed for an instant, then, cocked an eye in humorous confession, and spoke low. “Caught, I suppose. Well, Mr. Bannerlee, I don’t think that, barring an exception or two”—he hitched a shoulder toward the nearer table where Mrs. Bartholomew was deliberating whether to play the ace or not—“I don’t think we are particularly agog as a whole. One may have one reason, one another, but mine is that I believe Sir Brooke Mortimer is a good deal different from what he seems. And you may be sure that I’d not be telling you that if I weren’t sure that his real purpose will be revealed—”
He said more, but I did not take in the sense of it. Eve Bartholomew, I noticed, played the ace, which was immediately trumped by Oxford; but that was a trifle. What had taken me out of mind for a moment was the striking similarity of his words to the thought in my own brain, that the people in Aidenn Vale were other than they seemed. This, great as was my attraction to it, was scarcely a topic to be pursued with my acquaintance of a few minutes, and my next contribution to talk turned the subject.
“I was about to ask Pendleton a question; may I victimize you?”
“Why, certainly—if I can—”
I lowered my voice to half its volume. “I am sure that you can. This, according to our host, is a genuine old Welsh Bidding Feast. But as far as I could discover, most of the attributes are missing, and especially the most essential one of all.”
“What’s that?”
“The bride in prospect. I am quite certain she is not, er, here.”
He laughed with his eyes, throwing back his head quite gleefully. “You may be sure she’s not. Of course, our good Cosgrove’s American betrothed—did Pendleton tell you she’s American?—isn’t in sight just now. The fact is, Miss Mertoun—Oxford’s her cousin—has been headachy all evening, and Miss Lebetwood has been staying with her since she went to her room.”