Part 16 (1/2)
”It's gospel truth,” the General replied, with st.u.r.dy insistence. ”Sign of senile decay, though, thinking aloud.”
”_You_ are not decayed. You might as well accuse _me_ of being in my first childhood, and I have really pa.s.sed that,” Sybil smiled back at him. ”But,” she added, ”I am childish enough to be a little hurt that you don't appear to think so.”
”My dear girl, what have I done? 'Pon honor, I don't know that I have done anything,” the General protested piteously.
”That's just it. It's because you have done nothing, or next to nothing, that your contemptuous reference to 'too many women' seems to me a trifle unkind,” replied Sybil, pretending to misunderstand him. ”What would have happened to my cousin, when the panel was cut the other night at Beaumanoir House, if it hadn't been for a woman?”
The General accepted the reproof in thoughtful silence, forced to admit to himself that it was not uncalled for. If it had not been for Sybil Hanbury's nerve and courage on the occasion when the bogus detective officer had secreted himself in the Duke's town house, the answer to her question might have had to be written in blood. Her quick apprehension of subtle danger, her determination to sit up and watch, and her cool presence of mind in face of the emergency when it arose, had saved the situation and stamped her as of sterling metal.
”I apologize,” he jerked out presently. ”I still think there are too many women in the business, but you ain't one of 'em.”
”Thank you,” Sybil returned, drily. ”And, that being so, wouldn't it be a good plan to ask a woman to help you, on the principle of setting a thief to catch a thief, you know?”
The General shot a rather shamefaced glance at the firm mouth and steadfast eyes of this plucky young enthusiast, and thereupon he decided to enlist her as an adviser in the more intricate questions that vexed him. There was the chance that woman's wit would fathom woman's guile, and tell him why Mrs. Talmage Eglinton should want to point the index of suspicion at Ziegler, who was probably her _confrere_ in crime. Woman's wit might even tell him why his Grace the Duke of Beaumanoir, engaged in such a simple ducal pastime as making sheep's-eyes at a pretty American girl, should yet recoil abashed whenever Leonie turned her frankly responsive but puzzled gaze on him. Above all, the course proposed would enable this brave English girl to do what he was beginning to fear he could not do for her-to take care of herself.
”Yes,” he said, putting down his cup with a grim smile, ”I'll take you on, soon as you've finished your tea. And,” he added, fumbling for his cigar-case, ”I'll try and not frighten you.”
Sybil rose at once, and together they strolled along the terrace to a distance from the chatter round the tea-table, which had drowned their incipient confidences. When they were quite out of earshot Sybil turned and confronted the General, and the lighter tone with which she had ”played” him was lacking now.
”Tell me,” she said gravely, ”why Mrs. Talmage Eglinton is so anxious to kill my poor cousin and spoil that charming idyll.”
”Mrs. Talmage Eglinton!” stammered the General. ”How on earth did you know that?”
”How did I know!” his new coadjutor repeated with scorn. ”In the same way that she must know herself that _you_ know, you dear silly old man.
Because of the absolutely absurd invitation to her to come and stay here at Prior's Tarrant without rhyme or reason.”
And then, when General Sadgrove had recovered from the shock of finding that he was not quite inscrutable, they talked, very seriously, for upwards of half an hour.
CHAPTER XV-_A New Cure for Headache_
”I wonder if General Sadgrove and Mr. Forsyth are lunatics?” Sybil Hanbury purred softly, after joining in the chorus of thanks which greeted a superb rendering of Strelezki's ”Arlequin” on the long disused grand piano in the tapestry-room. This apartment was more cozy and homelike than the vast white drawing-room at Beaumanoir House, but it was quite large enough for isolated conversations.
The uncomplimentary confidence was made into the sh.e.l.l-like ear of Mrs.
Talmage Eglinton, who, faultlessly gowned by Worth, was sitting apart with her nominal hostess in the embrasure of an oriel window. The Duke was hovering near the piano, and Forsyth was talking to Mrs. Sadgrove and Mrs. Sherman. The General was not present, having excused himself from coming straight from the dining-room on the plea of having a letter to write.
Sybil's disjointed remark-for it followed a discussion on French cookery-caused a sudden twist of the ivory shoulders towards her, the swift eagerness of the movement being discounted by the languorous stare of slowly interested surprise. There was a hint of resentment, perhaps also a trace of alarm, in the wheeling of the decolletee shoulders; in the stare these emotions were corrected into a mild desire to hear more of such a sweeping surmise.
”Lunatics-those two!” Mrs. Talmage Eglinton exclaimed, in well-modulated astonishment. ”That's what you English call rather a large order, isn't it? What makes you say so?”
”Hus.h.!.+ My cousin is trying to persuade Miss Sherman to sing,” replied Sybil. ”Wait till she has begun, and I'll tell you. It's too funny to keep to one's self.”
For two days now the house-party at Prior's Tarrant had been increased by the elegant addition of Mrs. Talmage Eglinton, and on the surface matters were pursuing their normal course. The Duke had received his latest guest with a democratic courtesy none the less cordial because of her floridly expressed note, which in the stress of other preoccupations he had forgotten altogether. He had a vague idea that the General had wished the vivacious American to be included because she was a fellow countrywoman of the Shermans, and that was quite enough to ensure his good-will towards her.
This view was so far from being the right one that Mrs. Sherman and Leonie had only succeeded in being coldly polite to the latest arrival.
Mrs. Sadgrove, with an inkling that the beautifully dressed but too effusive American was an important factor in her husband's schemes, was more outwardly complacent, but it was reserved for Sybil to shower upon Mrs. Talmage Eglinton special civilities which had ended, after two days only, in their becoming constant companions, if not bosom friends. If the handsome visitor wanted to walk in the park or to be shown some object of interest in the gardens, Sybil was always at hand to accompany her; and if it rained, as it had done all this day, she spent hours in entertaining her in her own rooms.
As for Forsyth, Sybil deserted him entirely; and as the other ladies abstained from discussing personal topics before the unpopular guest, there had been no making known beyond the small circle who knew it already of the new secretary's engagement to his employer's cousin.