“Your anxiety cannot be very great, or you would wait to learn whether your suspicions are baseless or not.”
She paused, in a dignified attitude, with her hand on the back of a chair, while he adjusted his gold pince-nez and ran through the list.
“You are right so far,” he said coldly. “The names are identical.”
They parted at the door. The Canon walked back to his hotel with anger in his heart. In spite of cumulative evidence, the theory that his cousin had insinuated was prima facie preposterous. It was important enough, however, to need some investigation. But the feeling uppermost in his mind was indignation with Mrs. Winstanley. He was too shrewd a man not to have perceived long ago her jealousy of Yvonne; but beyond keeping a watchful eye lest his wife should receive hurt, he had not condescended to take it into serious consideration. Now, beneath her impressive manner he clearly divined the desire to inflict on Yvonne a deadly injury. To have leaped at such a conclusion, to have sought subsequent proof from the Visitors’ List, argued malicious design. He could never forgive her.
Still the matter had to be cleared up at once. On his arrival at the Océan, he went forthwith to Yvonne’s room, and entered on receiving an acknowledgment of his knock. She was standing in the light of the window by the toilet table, doing her hair. The rest of the room was in the shadow of the gathering evening.
“Well,” she said, without turning, “are they coming?”
The grace of her attitude, the intimacy of the scene, the pleasantness of her greeting, made his task hateful.
“No,” he said, with an asperity directed towards the disinvited guest. “We shall dine alone to-night.”
But his tone made Yvonne’s heart give a great throb, and she turned to him quickly.
“Has anything happened?”