between husband and wife to be a minor source of trouble for a big man.
'What was the trouble between them, anyhow?' Trent enquired.
'You can search me,' Mr. Bunner replied briefly. He puffed at his cigar. 'Marlowe and I have often talked about it, and we could never make out a solution. I had a notion at first,' said Mr. Bunner in a lower voice, leaning forward, 'that the old man was disappointed and vexed because he had expected a child; but Marlowe told me that the disappointment on that score was the other way around, likely as not. His idea was all right, I guess; he gathered it from something said by Mrs. Manderson's French maid.'
Trent looked up at him quickly. 'Célestine!' he said; and his thought was, 'So that was what she was getting at!'
Mr. Bunner misunderstood his glance. 'Don't you think I'm giving a man away, Mr Trent,' he said. 'Marlowe isn't that kind. Célestine just took a fancy to him because he talks French like a native, and she would always be holding him up for a gossip. French servants are quite unlike English that way. And servant or no
