failed to strike Beaumanoir in his sudden horror at the associations called up by it. This frivolous butterfly of a woman occupied the next suite of rooms to those in which Ziegler was spinning his villainous web—in which that terrible old man had unfolded to him the details of his treacherous task. Strange, too, that he should be bidden to the mild dissipation of an afternoon tea-table in that hotel, of all others, on the very day when he was due to go there on business so different, for Saturday was the day appointed by Ziegler for his call for “further instructions.”
Conscious that the mocking eyes of the lady in the landau were watching him with a curious inquiry, he mastered his emotion, and at the same time came to a decision on the vital issue before him. Probably he would have arrived at the same one without the incentive of avoiding an unpalatable engagement, but Mrs. Talmage Eglinton’s invitation to tea was undoubtedly the final influence in setting him on the straight path.
“I am very sorry,” he replied, and there was a new dignity in his tone, “but I must ask you to excuse me. I am going down to-morrow to
[48]
