He clutched at the respite like a drowning man at straws, though no drowning man would have felt his sudden rush of self-contempt. "Who gave it to you, and what was it about?" Free of his hidden restraints, she had quite thrown off the embarrassment which she had felt settling down upon her a moment before, and laughed lightly and naturally. "It was about coming to this beautiful luncheon to-day--about _not_ coming, I mean--and it was given to me--don't be angry--by Mr. Higginson, the old man, you know, who helped you last night." "Ah!... Mr. Higginson." "Tell me!" she said impulsively, her eyes upon his face--"I saw last night that you distrusted him--_do_ you know anything about him?" With an obvious effort he wrenched his thought from his present urgency, and brought it to focus upon a puzzle which now seemed oddly like an echo from a distant past. "Not yet," he said, with an impassive face. "But I trust--" "Oh, I don't like the way you say that! I don't see how you _can_ be so suspicious of such a patently well-meaning old dear. And yet--" "Well, then, tell me what he said to you and convert me." "I suppose I must--I have had it on my mind a little, and you have a right to know. Yet I don't want to at all! For I must say it seems just a little to--to support your view. Well, then," she said, some perplexity showing beneath her smile, "it happened about eleven o'clock this morning as I was going down the street to see Elsie Marne--never dreaming of mysteries. I met Mr. Higginson walking towards our house, and we stopped, so I thought, for a friendly word. For he and I made friends last night. Oh, you have a right to think I am too free, too easy, in the way I--I make friends with strangers, and yet really this--is not like me at all. And there is something very winning about this old man. Well, he asked me point-blank--begged me--not to come to your lunch-party to-day. What have you to say to that?" He continued to look at her as from a distance, not answering her little laugh. Behind the grave mask of his face he cursed himself heartily for his self-absorption of the morning, which had led him entirely to lose sight of Mr. Higginson's activities last night. He had fully meant to search out that "winning" old man on his excursion to the town, but in his engrossment over the more important duty of the day, the matter had dropped completely from his mind. That the old spy had somehow ferreted out their secret was now too plain to admit a doubt. But what conceivable use did he mean to make of it? To interfere with the _Cypriani's_ homegoing was beyond his power now. Did it better suit his mysterious purpose to hold back until the thing was done, in order to raise the dogs of scandal afterwards?...