Guy Nicholson had promised to reveal something to me in strictest confidence, but, alas! his lips had been mysteriously closed before he had had opportunity. Closed by whom?
I turned down upon the quays and, following the Rhone bank, was soon back at the hotel.
I left my hat in my own room and, on entering our private sitting-room found, to my delight, that Asta was still there. She had been reading and had just risen as I entered, for she stood by the pale-green curtains at the window, holding a fold of them in her hand, and looking forth into the starlit night, her slim young figure clearly outlined against their dull soft green, a becoming rose-flush upon her cheeks, her lips slightly parted, and her eyes bewitchingly bright.
“I’ve been waiting for Dad, Mr Kemball,” she said. “Do you know where he is?”
“Out, I think,” was my reply. “I suppose he’s smoking in one of the cafés. He believed that you had gone to bed, I expect.”
And I threw myself lazily into a chair.
I thought that her eyes filled with tears as she turned back towards the long open windows and gazed out into the Place below. And I confess that this surprised me.
“You are upset!” I said softly, rising and standing at her side. “What’s the matter, Miss Seymour? Tell me, confide in me—your friend.”
“I—I hardly know,” she faltered, in a strange hoarse voice. I took her hand, and found it trembling. “But—”
“But what?” I asked. Her face was turned away from me towards the night.