Page:Agatha Christie-The Murder on the Links.djvu/118

 “Yesterday it was Mademoiselle Daubreuil, today it is Mademoiselle—Cinderella! Decidedly you have the heart of a Turk, Hastings! You should establish a harem!”

“It’s all very well to rag me. Mademoiselle Daubreuil is a very beautiful girl, and I do admire her immensely—I don’t mind admitting it. The other’s nothing—don’t suppose I shall ever see her again. She was quite amusing to talk to just for a railway journey, but she’s not the kind of girl I should ever get keen on.”

“Why?”

“Well—it sounds snobbish perhaps—but she’s not a lady, not in any sense of the word.”

Poirot nodded thoughtfully. There was less raillery in his voice as he asked:

“You believe, then, in birth and breeding?”

“I may be old-fashioned, but I certainly don’t believe in marrying out of one’s class. It never answers.”

“I agree with you, mon ami. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it is as you say. But there is always the hundredth time! Still, that does not arise, as you do not propose to see the lady again.”

His last words were almost a question, and I was aware of the sharpness with which he darted a glance at me. And before my eyes, writ large in letters of fire, I saw the words “Hôtel du Phare,” and I heard again her voice saying “Come and look me up” and my own answering with empressement: “I will.”

Well, what of it? I had meant to go at the time. But since then, I had had time to reflect. I did not like the girl. Thinking it over in cold blood, I came definitely to the conclusion that I disliked her intensely. I had got hauled over the coals for foolishly gratifying her morbid curiosity, and I had not the least wish to see her again.

I answered Poirot lightly enough.

“She asked me to look her up, but of course I shan’t.”

“Why ‘of course’?”

“Well—I don’t want to.”