“Please find Mr. Denby,” she said, “and say that I am here.”
Before he could turn to go, she affected to discover the leathern pouch.
“Oh, Lambart,” she exclaimed, “here’s Mr. Denby’s tobacco; he must have forgotten it.”
The man took up the pouch, assuming from her manner that she desired him to carry it to the owner. “No, I’ll take it,” she said, and reached for it. Lambart only saw what was to him an inexcusably clumsy gesture which dislodged it from his hand and sent it to the floor, in such a manner that it opened and the tobacco tumbled out. But the girl’s gesture was cleverer than he knew for in that brief moment she had satisfied herself it was empty.
“Oh, Lambart,” she said reprovingly, “how careless of you! Have you spilt it all?”
Lambart examined its interior with a butler’s gravity.
“I’m afraid I have, miss,” he admitted.
“I think Mr. Denby went into the library,” she said, knowing that the door behind which someone—probably he—was hiding, led to that room.
Hearing her, Denby knew he must not be discovered and retreated through the empty library into a small smoking-room into which Lambart did not penetrate. The man returned to Miss Cartwright, his errand unaccomplished. “Mr. Denby is not there,” he said.
“Then I will give him the pouch when I see him,” she said, “and, Lambart, you need not tell him I am here.”