Geoffrey looked on amusedly at it all. With Sylvia he had a perfect understanding. She had promised him, time after time, that if she ever married he was to be her husband. The rest did not matter. Hence he remained perfectly content, devoting his days—and his nights—to scientific research.
One day Peterson told him that he was dining with Paget that night at the Bath Club, and that his host had telephoned asking him to bring him along. At first Geoffrey hesitated. Next moment he saw that if he became friendly with the mysterious fox-hunter he might learn the truth concerning certain facts which had so sorely puzzled him.
Therefore he accepted.
He found Paget a most genial host. While at table they spoke of wireless, and Peterson made mention of his fellow-guest’s important invention. At once Paget became interested, but Geoffrey merely laughed, and with his usual modesty, turned the conversation into another channel. Afterwards they went to a theatre and concluded a merry evening.
May Farncombe’s stay with Mrs. Beverley was almost at an end. She was joining her aunt in Paris, and then going with her down to Cap Martin. Somehow Geoffrey could not put it out of his mind that something was wrong. There was a secret between the girl and the affable man known at Stamford as Phillips, and in Half Moon Street as Paget. As the looker-on sees most of the game, he resolved to watch at Half Moon Street. This he did on several afternoons, wondering whether the girl, escaping from Upper Brook Street on pretence of shopping, would call there.
On the third afternoon, as he lingered in the vicinity, very careful to remain out of observation from the man’s windows, she came, neatly and quietly dressed, and, unseen, Geoffrey watched her enter the house where Paget lived.
She remained nearly an hour and a half, while he still waited against the Park railings on the other side of Piccadilly from where he had a clear view of Half Moon Street. At last she emerged, and gaining Piccadilly, turned in the direction of Hyde Park Corner. Noting this, Geoffrey slipped into a passing taxi and followed, thus getting in front of her unnoticed in the traffic. At Apsley House he got out, paid the man, and mingling with the hurrying crowd, walked in the direction she was coming.
At last, as though quite unexpectedly, they met. She started as though he were some apparition. For a moment she seemed too upset to be able to speak. Indeed, Geoffrey detected that she had been crying, for her eyes were swollen, and her cheeks showed traces of tears.
He was about to remark upon it, but refrained. Evidently her interview with the fellow Paget had been the reverse of pleasant, and her attitude set him further wondering. She, of course, had no idea that he had watched her go to Paget’s rooms.
He turned and walked with her up Park Lane, amazed to notice how nervous and unstrung she seemed.