Page:Biggers and Ritchie - Inside the Lines.djvu/227

 bantering, but his eyes did not leave the piquant face under the chic summer straw hat that shaded it.

"Surely. One of your own men—Captain Woodhouse, of the signal service." Jane was rearranging the stems in the bowl, apparently ready to accept what was on the surface of the general's rallying.

"Woodhouse, eh? You've known him for a long time, I take it."

"Since last night. General. And yet some people say Englishmen are slow." She laughed gaily and turned to face him. His voice took on a subtle quality of polite insistence:

"Surely you met him somewhere before Gibraltar."

"How could I, when this is the first time Captain Woodhouse has been out of Egypt for years?"

"Who told you that?" The general was quick to catch her up. The girl felt a swift stab of fear. On the instant she realized that here was somebody attempting to drive into the mystery which she herself could not