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Look here!" He looked where I pointed. Major Fitz-David's address was Number Sixteen Vivian Place the very house which I had seen my husband leaving as we passed in the carriage! "YES," said Benjamin. "It is a coincidence certainly. Still " He stopped and looked at me. He seemed a little doubtful how I might receive what he had it in his mind to say to me next. "Go on," I said.
And why had Major Fitz-David's face changed when he found that I had discovered the remains of his shattered work of art in the cabinet drawer? The remains left those serious questions unanswered the remains told me absolutely nothing. And yet, if my own observation of the Major were to be trusted, the way to the clew of which I was in search lay, directly or indirectly, through the broken vase.
"I did think of such a thing," I answered. "But after what you have said, dear Mrs. Macallan, I give up the idea, of course. It is not a great sacrifice it only obliges me to wait a week for Major Fitz-David's dinner-party. He has promised to ask Miserrimus Dexter to meet me." "There is the Major all over!" cried the old lady. "If you pin your faith on that man, I pity you.
THE days that elapsed before Major Fitz-David's dinner-party were precious days to me. My long interview with Miserrimus Dexter had disturbed me far more seriously than I suspected at the time. It was not until some hours after I had left him that I really began to feel how my nerves had been tried by all that I had seen and heard during my visit at his house.
The lines ran thus: "To Major Fitz-David, with two vases. From his friends, S. and E. M." Was one of those two vases the vase that had been broken? And was the change that I had noticed in Major Fitz-David's face produced by some past association in connection with it, which in some way affected me? It might or might not be so.
Benjamin was the first to ask me what had passed between my husband and myself. "You may speak freely, my dear," he said. "I know what has happened since you have been in Major Fitz-David's house. No one has told me about it; I found it out for myself. If you remember, I was struck by the name of 'Macallan, when you first mentioned it to me at my cottage. I couldn't guess why at the time.
But Major Fitz-David's admiration rose from one climax to another with such alarming rapidity that I felt the importance of administering a practical check to it. I trusted to those ominous words, "a favor to ask of you," to administer the check, and I did not trust in vain. My aged admirer gently dropped my hand, and, with all possible politeness, changed the subject.
When the day of the dinner arrived, I felt restored to my customary health. I was ready again, and eager again, for the introduction to Lady Clarinda and the discovery of Mrs. Beauly. Benjamin looked a little sadly at my flushed face as we drove to Major Fitz-David's house. "Ah, my dear," he said, in his simple way, "I see you are well again! You have had enough of our quiet life already."
I turned them up and looked under the cushions, and still I made no discoveries. When I had put the chairs back in their places my search on one side of the room was complete. So far I had found nothing. I crossed to the opposite wall, the wall which contained the window. I had Major Fitz-David's permission to do just what I pleased.
The chambermaid pointed with her wicked forefinger in the direction of the glass. "Bear in mind, ma'am, what you looked like when you sent for me," she said. "And just see for yourself how you look now. Ah what a thing pearl-powder is, when one knows how to use it!" I FIND it impossible to describe my sensations while the carriage was taking me to Major Fitz-David's house.
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