“And will you give me that chance of speaking to you—alone?”
The girl bent her eyes to the table. She was thinking quickly. “To-morrow morning I will be in the writing room at half past nine. Will that do? It will not be easy to manage it before then.”
“It will do admirably. Thank you,” said Clement.
He left her, and went to the back of the room, where there were a number of empty tables.
As he sat and ate his lunch the companion, Méduse came in. She was flustered, she was even scared. Clement was amused, but he did not think it mattered very much. She would not, he thought, mention the reason for her leaving Heloise—though actually there was no reason. Neither did he think that Heloise would tell her of the appointment she had made. His insistence upon privacy, the way he had snatched at the chance to speak to her alone at her table, the way he had left her, would all tell Heloise that the companion Méduse was excluded from the secret.
And even if she did tell, it would matter very little. Clement would have his interview with Heloise no later than the next morning, for Heloise would see to it that it happened, and nothing very much could occur until that time. The rogues could not whisk her away against her will. They had to move delicately always.
And after he had spoken to Heloise, nothing at all could occur. He would have settled with Mr. Neuburg and his gang once and for all.
He finished his lunch after the two ladies, watched them out of the dining room, then he got his hat and stick and walked out through Quebec. He would take a look at this glue merchant’s in the Sault Algonquin. It was best to be “well-up” in every particular. Very cheerfully he walked through the Place d’Armes, and down the steep street of The Mountain to the huddled network of passageways—they can hardly be called roads—that crowded under the rocky scarp of the Grand Battery. He was feeling “good,” as the Canadians would say. Why not? Hadn’t he all the factors for victory surely in his grasp?
Possibly he would have felt less “good” if he had been aware of a little scene between the companion Méduse and the massive Mr. Neuburg that was even then taking place.