The shabby man was an emissary of her enemies, she told me as much. Yet in all she said was mystery. At one moment I was convinced that she had told the truth when she said she was a governess, and at the next I suspected her of trying to deceive.
Presently, after she had handed me a cigarette, the servant tapped at the door, and a well-dressed man entered—the same man I had seen leave the house two nights previously.
“May I introduce you?” mademoiselle asked. “M’sieur Ewart—M’sieur le Baron de Moret.”
“Charmed to make your acquaintance, sir,” the Baron said, grasping my hand. “Mademoiselle here has already spoken of you.”
“The satisfaction is mutual, I assure you, Baron,” was my reply, and then we re-seated ourselves and began to chat.
Suddenly mademoiselle made some remark in a language which I did not understand. The effect it had upon the new-comer was almost electrical. He started from his seat, glaring at her. Then he began to question her rapidly in the unknown tongue.
He was a flashily-dressed man, of overbearing manner, with a thick neck and square, determined chin. It was quite evident that the warning I had given them aroused their apprehensions, for they held a rapid consultation, and then Julie went out, returning with another man, a dark-haired, lowbred-looking foreigner, who spoke the same tongue as his companions.
They disregarded my presence altogether in their eager consultation, therefore I rose to go; for I saw that I was not wanted.
Julie held my hand and looked into my eyes in mute appeal. She appeared anxious to say something to me in private. At least that was my impression.
When I left the house I passed, at the end of the Crescent, a shabby man idly smoking. Was he one of the watchers?