Page:The Secret of Chimneys - 1987.djvu/179

 “Bill, be sensible and intelligent for a minute. I want to ask your advice.”

“If you’d once make up your mind to it, and say you’d marry me, you’d feel miles better, I’m sure. Happier, you know, and more settled down.”

“Listen to me, Bill. Proposing to me is your idée fixe. All men propose when they’re bored and can’t think of anything to say. Remember my age and my widowed state, and go and make love to a pure young girl.”

“My darling Virginia Oh, blast! here’s that French idiot bearing down on us.”

It was indeed M. Lemoine, black-bearded and correct of demeanour as ever.

“Good morning, madame. You are not fatigued, I trust?”

“Not in the least.”

“That is excellent. Good morning, Mr. Eversleigh.

“How would it be if we promenaded ourselves a little, the three of us?” suggested the Frenchman.

“How about it, Bill?” said Virginia.

“Oh, all right,” said the unwilling young gentleman by her side.

He heaved himself up from the grass, and the three of them walked slowly along, Virginia between the two men. She was sensible at once of a strange undercurrent of excitement in the Frenchman, though she had no clue as to what caused it.

Soon, with her usual skill, she was putting him at his ease, asking him questions, listening to his answers, and gradually drawing him out. Presently he was telling them anecdotes of the famous King Victor. He talked well, albeit with a certain bitterness, as he described the various ways in which the detective bureau had been outwitted.

But all the time, despite the real absorption of Lemoine in his own narrative, Virginia had a feeling that he had some other object in view. Moreover, she judged that Lemoine, under cover of his story, was deliberately striking out his own course across the park. They were not just strolling idly. He was deliberately guiding them in a certain direction.

Suddenly, he broke off his story and looked round. They were standing just where the drive intersected the park before turning an abrupt corner by a clump of trees. Lemoine