“Certainly not,” she cried with feigned indignation. “How dare you attempt to be complimentary at my expense? No, if I remember aright there was one woman who in your eyes was a veritable angel, who—”
“Ah!” he said gravely, in a tone quite natural and unaffected. “Yes, you are right. There was one woman.” And he sighed as if painful memories oppressed him.
One woman! Did he allude to Sybil? If so, it was apparent that Mabel must be well aware of his acquaintance with the woman I had loved. Silent I sat while the conversation quickly turned from grave to gay, as it always did when the Countess chattered.
Suddenly, as we were passing into Piccadilly, it became impressed vividly upon my mind that they were hiding some secret from me. Two prominent facts aroused within me suspicion that their conversation was being carried on in order to mislead me. The first was, that although I had asked them what had brought them to Radnor Place neither of them had given any satisfactory reply; the second was, that although Sternroyd must have been associated in some mysterious way with that silent house to which the photographs had been sent, he had made no allusion whatever to it, nor did he make any observation when he noticed my dismay at discovering it untenanted.
It was evident some secret understanding existed between them, and the more I reflected upon it the more probable did it appear that they had actually called at this house, and had only just left it when I arrived. In order to ascertain my object in visiting it, and to learn the extent of my knowledge regarding it, the Countess had greeted me with her usual gaiety, and was now carrying me triumphantly back. I had, of course, no proof; nevertheless, I had an intuition, strange and distinct, that in close concert with my dead love’s whilom friend, Sternroyd, she was playing a deep mysterious game with considerable tact and consummate ingenuity. But she was a most remarkable woman. Always brilliant and fascinating, always sparkling with wit and bubbling with humour, she was thoroughly unconventional in every respect. Society had long ago ceased to express surprise at any of her eccentric or impetuous actions. She held licence from Mother Grundy to act as, she pleased, for was she not admitted on all hands to be “the smartest woman in London?” She had a watchful confidence not only in a multitude of men, but in a multitude of things.
She dropped me outside the New Lyric Club, close to Piccadilly Circus, not, however, before she had expressed regret at Dora’s unhappiness.
“What has occurred?” I asked concernedly.
“Oh! there has been a terrible upset at home about Jack Bethune,” she answered. “I’ve done my level best with Ma, but she absolutely forbids Jack to pay his addresses to Dora.”
“Because, as you have already told me, she wants her to marry a man she can never love,” I said gravely.
“Yes,” she said hurriedly. “But here’s your club. Captain Bethune is certain to tell you all about it. Goodbye! I shall be at Lady Hillingdon’s to-morrow night, then we’ll resume our chat.”