“Can’t you see I want you to go away for the afternoon?” said Corinna angrily.
“Any idiot could see that,” replied Martin.
“Then why don’t you?”
“I want to keep an eye on you.”
She flushed scarlet and rose from the table. “All right. Spy as much as you like. It doesn’t matter to me.”
Once more she left him with a dramatic whirl of skirts. The procedure having become monotonous impressed Martin less than on previous occasions. He even smiled at the conscious smile of sagacity. There was something up, he reflected, with Corinna, or he would eat his hat. She contemplated some idiotic action. Of that there could be no doubt. It behoved him, as the only protector she had in the world, to mount guard. He mounted guard, therefore, over cigarette and coffee in the vestibule of the hotel, and for some time held entertaining converse with Bigourdin on the decadence of Germanic culture, and while Martin was expounding the futile vulgarity of the spectacle of Sumurum which, on one of his rare visits to places of amusement, he had witnessed in London, the word of Corinna’s enigma was suddenly and dustily flashed upon him.
From a dusty two-seater car that drew up noisily at the door, sprang a dusty youth with a reddish face and a little black moustache.
“Is Mademoiselle Hastings in the hotel?” he asked.
“Yes, monsieur,” said Bigourdin.
“Will you kindly let her know that I am here—Monsieur Camille Fargot?”