I was resentful, wrathful, in the very deuce of a humor. Black gloom
settled over me. I admitted that Van Blarcom had been right. I recalled
the girl's vague explanations as we sat over our dinner; her denials,
unbolstered save by my willingness to accept them; all the chain of
incriminating circumstances that I had pondered over in the cab. Her
charm and the mystery that enveloped her had thrilled and stirred me;
she had seen it. To gain a few hours' leeway she had once again duped
me; and this hotel, with its deceptive air of family and respectability,
was a blind, a rendezvous, another such setting for intrigue as the St.
Ives.
Her work might be already accomplished. Perhaps she had left Paris. I
told myself with some savageness that I did not know and did not care.
From the first my presence in this luridly adventurous galley had been
incongruous; I would get back with all despatch to the Ritz and the
orderly world it typified.
I had gone perhaps twenty feet when a grating noise attracted me.
Glancing back across my shoulder, I saw that the old majordomo was
unlocking and setting wide the gate.
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