Still, it is said that everybody in the world has a double. Often in his own experience he had claimed acquaintance with somebody whom he had mistaken for an old friend, and smilingly apologised for his error. Norah's good looks had been of a rather uncommon kind, but there must be dozens of women in the world more or less like her.
Then, as Miss Crichton's harmless chatter flowed on, he thought of other things. Norah had an obscure past, on which such guarded confidences as she permitted herself to indulge in threw little or no light. It would appear that Stella Keane's history moved much on the same lines. There were only vague intimations, nothing definite, nothing satisfactory.
There was another point of resemblance. Norah had one male relative who came out into the open for inspection, in her case a brother, afterwards discovered to be a criminal. Stella Keane had one male relative also, in her case a cousin, of whom nothing was known, except that he was an undesirable person who had not visited his relative's house since her marriage, no doubt for reasons well known to himself and Stella.
Ergo the undesirable cousin was lying low, as George Burton would have lain low, when Jack Pomfret had openly acknowledged Norah as his wife.
And yet—and yet—was there anything in these suspicions? was he not allowing himself to be misled by a chance resemblance, by random coincidences?
He stole a look at Guy Spencer chatting amiably with his cousin, the cousin whom rumour had persistently designed as the future Countess of Southleigh. He seemed the happy contented young married man; there was no hint of trouble or regret in his assured, placid demeanour. Evidently he was suffering from no self-reproach, no suspicion of the beautiful young woman he had made his wife. The calmness of his aspect gave the lie to any such disquieting suggestions.
And the current of Murchison's thoughts ran swiftly along. They had been married some time now. If Stella Keane was the impostor Hugh suspected her to be, from that striking resemblance to Norah Burton the heroine of that tragic Blankville episode, surely in the close intimacy of wedded life something would have escaped her that would have aroused her husband's suspicions, have set him inquiring more closely into the past.
Granting that she was a clever actress, still the most accomplished performer in the world could not wear the mask all day. There must come one moment, if not several moments, when that mask would be inadvertently dropped.
No, he must be mistaken. The resemblance must be accidental. The brother in the one case, the cousin in the other, were equally accidental coincidences.
He had got to this frame of mind when the men joined the ladies after dinner. In the spacious drawing-room, the atmosphere seemed to have cleared, the tension to be relaxed, with the change of scene.