Page:The Secret of Chimneys - 1987.djvu/133

 “Oh, glowing! She’d lived for ten years with the Countess of What Not.”

“What Not being—?”

“The Comtesses de Breteuil, Château de Breteuil, Dinard.”

“You didn’t actually see the Comtesse yourself? It was all done by letter?”

“Exactly.”

“H’m!” said Anthony.

“You intrigue me,” said Bundle. “You intrigue me enormously. Is it love or crime?”

“Probably sheer idiocy on my part. Let’s forget it.”

“‘Let’s forget it,’ said he negligently, having extracted all the information he wants. Mr. Cade, whom do you suspect? I rather suspect Virginia as being the most unlikely person. Or possibly Bill.”

“What about you?”

“Member of the aristocracy joins in secret the Comrades of the Red Hand. It would create a sensation all right.”

Anthony laughed. He liked Bundle, though he was a little afraid of the shrewd penetration of her sharp grey eyes.

“You must be proud of all this,” he said suddenly, waving his hand towards the great house in the distance.

Bundle screwed up her eyes and tilted her head on one side.

“Yes—it means something, I suppose. But one’s too used to it. Anyway, we’re not here very much—too deadly dull. We’ve been at Cowes and Deauville all the summer after town, and then up to Scotland. Chimneys has been swathed in dust sheets for about five months. Once a week they take the dust sheets off and char-à-bancs full of tourists come and gape, and listen to Tredwell. ‘On your right is the portrait of the fourth Marchioness of Caterham, painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds,’ etc., and Ed or Bert, the humorist of the party, nudges his girl and says ‘Eh! Gladys, they’ve got two pennyworth of pictures here, right enough.’ And then they go and look at more pictures and yawn and shuffle their feet and wish it was time to go home.”

“Yet history has been made here once or twice, by all accounts.”

“You’ve been listening to George,” said Bundle sharply. “That’s the kind of thing he’s always saying.”

But Anthony had raised himself on his elbow, and was staring at the shore.