Page:Bat Wing 1921.djvu/164

156 Harley nodded sympathetically, but I could see that he was not satisfied. Yet, although he might doubt her explanation, he had noted, and so had I, that Madame de Stämer’s concern was very real. Her slender hands were strangely unsteady; indeed her condition bordered on one of distraction.

Harley concealed his thoughts, whatever they may have been, beneath that mask of reserve which I knew so well, whilst I endeavoured in vain to draw Val Beverley into conversation with me.

I gathered that Madame de Stämer had been to visit the invalid, and that she was all anxiety to return was a fact she was wholly unable to conceal. There was a tired look in her still eyes, as though she had undertaken a task beyond her powers to perform, and, so unnatural a quartette were we, that when presently she withdrew I was glad, although she took Val Beverley with her.

Paul Harley resumed his seat, staring at me with unseeing eyes. A sound reached us through the drawing room which told us that Madame de Stämer’s chair was being taken upstairs, a task always performed when Madame desired to visit the upper floors by Manoel and Pedro’s daughter, Nita, who acted as Madame’s maid. These sounds died away, and I thought how silent everything had become. Even the birds were still, and presently, my eye being attracted to a black speck in the sky above, I learned why the feathered choir was mute. A hawk was hovering loftily overhead.

Noting my upward glance, Paul Harley also raised his eyes.

“Ah,” he murmured, “a hawk. All the birds are cowering in their nests. Nature is a cruel mistress, Knox.”