“Good-night, Raife!” and she started up the next flight of stairs. Half-way up she stopped, and looking round, beckoned him. When he approached she whispered: “What is the number of your room? One never knows in these foreign hotels. I might need you.”
“My number is 26,” he said. Again they parted, he wondering what she meant by placing so sudden a confidence in him.
As he descended to the foyer for a final smoke, and that refreshment we have christened a “nightcap,” he glanced upstairs again hoping to gain a final glimpse of his beloved. Instead, he saw—or was it fancy?—a tall figure looking down on him with a sardonic smile. For a moment only the sense of mistrust pervaded him. Then with an impatient gesture he muttered: “What’s the matter with you, Raife Remington? You’re all nerves to-night. It’s time you had that whisky and soda.”
Chapter Eight.
The Doctor’s Double Personality.
Raife Remington finished his cigar and returned rather lazily to his room, thinking all the while of the vision of loveliness that had so entranced him—his mind—his soul—his very being.
The little Yale key opened his door, and the lock yielded gracefully to its turn.
Even on the Riviera, the wide expanse of beautiful country which begins on the northern shore of the Mediterranean Sea and extends northwards somewhere towards the Alps—there are Yale keys.