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"Ten to-morrow morning, Fitzroy," said Cynthia, turning on the steps as she was about to enter the hotel. He lifted his cap. "The car will be ready, Miss Vanrenen," said he. He got down, and scowled, yes, actually scowled, at a porter who was hauling too strongly at the straps and buckles of the dust-covered trunks.
Devar smiled sourly at the thought that the interruption was well-timed, since Medenham was just raising his cap with a fine assumption of surprise at finding Miss Vanrenen strolling by the water's edge. The civil-spoken maid was about to trip off in pursuit of him, when Mrs. Devar changed her mind.
Cynthia might weep, she might even attempt to run, but in the last resource she would face him with dauntless courage. "I assure you I would not have had this thing happen on any account," he said in a voice that vibrated with sympathy. "Indeed, I pray your pity in my own behalf, Miss Vanrenen. After all, it is I who suffer the agony of failure when I meant only to please.
"Don't be a headstrong idiot," muttered the Count, with a certain heat of annoyance making itself felt in his patronizing tone. "Miss Vanrenen will come out at any minute " Medenham glanced at the clock by the side of the speed indicator. "Miss Vanrenen is due now unless she is being purposely detained by Mrs. Devar," he commented dryly.
"From what Fitzroy said when I told him I was going as far as the pier unaccompanied it seems to me that you staid Britons can be freer if not easier," retorted Miss Vanrenen. Her friend smiled sourly. "If he disapproved he was right, I admit," she purred. Cynthia withheld any further confidences. "What a splendid morning!" she said. "England is marvelously attractive on a day like this.
Devar by saying quietly: "In the meantime, Miss Vanrenen, the information stored in those little red books is growing rusty." She settled the dispute at once by asking her companion which side of the car she preferred, and the other woman was compelled to say graciously that she really had no choice in the matter, but, to avoid further delay, would take the left-hand seat.
Either you meet me under conditions that will insure a clear field for the survivor, or I devote myself to spreading in every quarter most likely to prove damaging to Miss Vanrenen the full, though, perhaps, untrue, but none the less fascinating story of her boating excursion on the Wye at midnight."
In the course of a single second Medenham found himself comparing them to blue diamonds, to the azure depths of a sunlit sea, to the exquisite tint of the myosotis. Then he swallowed his surprise, and lifted his cap. "May I ask if you are Miss Vanrenen?" he said. The blue eyes met his. For the first time in his life he was thrilled to the core by a woman's glance. "Yes."
His lordship has been a-damnin' everybody since two o'clock yesterday afternoon because a Miss Vanrenen, who had ordered rooms here, didn't turn up. She's on a motor tour through England, so I thought " "You have made no mistake. But are you quite sure that the Earl of Fairholme asked for Miss Vanrenen?"
"Miss Vanrenen and her friends are either on the pier listening to the band, or sitting over their coffee in the glass cage behind there. I'll wire Simmonds in the morning to hurry up." A man descended the steps of the hotel and walked straight across King's Road.
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