Page:Agatha Christie - The Secret Adversary (1922).djvu/189

Rh for self-control, and then abandoning all pretence, she held it to her lips and burst into a fit of sobbing.

"Oh, Tommy, Tommy," she cried, "I do love you so—and I may never see you again. "

At the end of five minutes Tuppence sat up, blew her nose, and pushed back her hair.

"That's that," she observed sternly. "Let's look facts in the face. I seem to have fallen in love—with an idiot of a boy who probably doesn't care two straws about me." Here she paused. "Anyway," she resumed, as though arguing with an unseen opponent, "I don't know that he does. He'd never have dared to say so. I've always jumped an sentiment—and here I am being more sentimental than anybody. What idiots girls are! I've always thought so. I suppose I shall sleep with his photograph under my pillow, and dream about him all night. It's dreadful to feel you've been false to your principles."

Tuppence shook her head sadly, as she reviewed her backsliding.

"I don't know what to say to Julius, I'm sure. Oh, what a fool I feel! I'll have to say something—he's so American and thorough, he'll insist upon having a reason. I wonder if he did find anything in that safe"

Tuppence's meditations went off on another tack. She reviewed the events of last night carefully and persistently. Somehow, they seemed bound up with Sir James's enigmatical words.

Suddenly she gave a great start—the colour faded out of her face. Her eyes, fascinated, gazed in front of her, the pupils dilated.