ment. “I had business with the gentleman who occupies the adjoining suite.”
If it was not genuine, the look of disappointment that stole into her face was a consummate piece of acting. “Oh, was that all,” she said, with a queer little laugh. “Well, that doesn’t absolve you from asking me to lunch now that you have the chance.”
“I shall be delighted,” was the only answer he could make without showing open hostility.
“Wait in the hall, then,” said Mrs. Talmage Eglinton. “I am only going up to see if some jewelry I left locked up when I went down to Prior’s Tarrant is safe.”
She hurried up the remaining stairs, and Forsyth continued his way down to the hall, a prey to conflicting emotions. Disgust at having to lunch with a woman he abhorred was the least of them. What worried him most at that moment was the doubt, restored by this meeting, whether Mrs. Talmage Eglinton was not, after all, the victim of a chain of coincidences.
And then, suddenly, a flicker of light broke on the situation through—of all places in the world—a tiny flaw in the lady’s defensive armor. She had spoken of her suite as locked
[249]
