“Do you?” she said, softly, “then sit down and talk to me.”
She dropped down upon a grassy bank, looking up at me invitingly, and I accepted the invitation without demur.
“I love this old garden,” she declared, “although of course it is really no older than the rest of the place. I always think there should be peacocks, though.”
“Yes,” I agreed, “peacocks would be appropriate.”
“And little pages dressed in yellow velvet.”
She met my glance soberly for a moment and then burst into a peal of merry laughter.
“Do you know, Miss Beverley,” I said, watching her, “I find it hard to place you in the household of the Colonel.”
“Yes?” she said simply; “you must.”
“Oh, then you realize that you are— ”
“Out of place here?”
“Quite.”
“Of course I am.”
She smiled, shook her head, and changed the subject.
“I am so glad Mr. Paul Harley has come down,” she confessed.
“You know my friend by name, then?”
“Yes,” she replied, “someone I met in Nice spoke of him, and I know he is very clever.”
“In Nice? Did you live in Nice before you came here?”
Val Beverley nodded slowly, and her glance grew oddly retrospective.
“I lived for over a year with Madame de Stamer in a little villa on the Promenade des Anglaise,” she replied. “That was after Madame was injured.”
“She sustained her injuries during the war, I understand?”
“Yes. Poor Madame. The hospital of which she was in charge was bombed and the shock left her as you see her. I was there, too, but I luckily escaped without injury.”
“What, you were there?”
“Yes. That was where I first met Madame de Stamer. She used to be very wealthy, you see, and she established this hospital in France at her own expense, and I was one of her assistants for a time. She lost both her husband and her fortune in the war, and as if that were not bad enough, lost the use of her limbs, too.”
“Poor woman,” I said. “I had no idea her life had been so tragic. She has wonderful courage.”
“Courage!” exclaimed the girl, “if you knew all that I know about her.”
Her face grew sweetly animated as she bent toward me excitedly and confidentially.
“Really, she is simply wonderful. I learned to respect her in those days as I have never respected any other woman in the world; and when, after all her splendid work, she, so vital and active, was stricken down like that, I felt that I simply could not leave her, especially as she asked me to stay.”
“So you went with her to Nice?”
“Yes. Then the Colonel took this house, and we came here, but— ”
She hesitated, and glanced at me curiously.
“Perhaps you are not quite happy?”
“No,” she said, “I am not. You see it was different in France. I knew so many people. But here at Cray’s Folly it is so lonely, and Madame is— ”
Again she hesitated.
“Yes?”
“Well,” she laughed in an embarrassed fashion, “I am afraid of her at times.”
“In what way?”
“Oh, in a silly, womanish sort of way. Of course she is a wonderful manager; she rules the house with a rod of iron. But really I haven’t anything to do here, and I feel frightfully out of place sometimes. Then the Colonel— Oh, but what am I talking about?”
“Won’t you tell me what it is that the Colonel fears?”
“You know that he fears something, then?”
“Of course. That is why Paul Harley is here.”
A change came over the girl’s face; a look almost of dread.
“I wish I knew what it all meant.”
“You are aware, then, that there is something wrong?”
“Naturally I am. Sometimes I have been so frightened that I have made up my mind to leave the very next day.”
“You mean that you have been frightened at night?” I asked with curiosity.
“Dreadfully frightened.”
“Won’t you tell me in what way?”
She looked up at me swiftly, then turned her head aside, and bit her lip.
“No, not now,” she replied. “I can’t very well.”
“Then at least tell me why you stayed?”
“Well,” she smiled rather pathetically, “for one thing, I haven’t anywhere else to go.”
“Have you no friends in England?”
She shook her head.
“No. There was only poor daddy, and he died over two years ago. That was when I went to Nice.”
“Poor little girl,” I said; and the words were spoken before I realized their undue familiarity.
An apology was on the tip of my tongue, but Miss Beverley did not seem to have noticed the indiscretion. Indeed my sympathy was sincere, and I think she had appreciated the fact.
She looked up again with a bright smile.
“Why are we talking about such depressing things on this simply heavenly day?” she exclaimed.
“Goodness knows,” said I. “Will you show me round these lovely gardens?”
“Delighted, sir!” replied the girl, rising and sweeping me a mocking curtsey.
Thereupon we set out, and at every step I found a new delight in some wayward curl, in a gesture, in the sweet voice of my companion. Her merry laugh was music, but in wistful mood I think she was even more alluring.
The menace, if menace there were, which overhung Cray’s Folly, ceased to exist— for me, at least, and I blessed the lucky chance which had led to my presence there.
We were presently rejoined by Colonel Menendez and Paul Harley, and I gathered that my surmise that it had been their voices which I had heard proceeding from the top of the tower to have been only partly accurate.
“I know you will excuse me, Mr. Harley,” said the Colonel, “for detailing the duty to Pedro, but my wind is not good enough for the stairs.”
He used idiomatic English at times with that facility which some foreigners acquire, but always smiled in a self-satisfied way when he had employed a slang term.
“I quite understand, Colonel,” replied Harley. “The view from the top was very fine.”
“And now, gentlemen,” continued the Colonel, “if Miss Beverley will excuse us, we will retire to the library and discuss business.”
“As you wish,” said Harley; “but I have an idea that it is your custom to rest in the afternoon.”
Colonel Menendez shrugged his shoulders. “It used to be,” he admitted, “but I have too much to think about in these days.”
“I can see that you have much to tell me,” admitted Harley; “and therefore I am entirely at your service.”
Val Beverley smiled and walked away swinging her book, at the same time treating me to a glance which puzzled me considerably. I wondered if I had mistaken its significance, for it had seemed to imply that she had accepted me as an ally. Certainly it served to awaken me to the fact that I had discovered a keen personal interest in the mystery which hung over this queerly assorted household.
I glanced at my friend as the Colonel led the way into the house. I saw him staring upward with a peculiar expression upon his face, and following the direction of his glance I could see an awning spread over one of the
