He made himself look deeply hurt. The girl laughed softly. He thought it rather remarkable that they should enjoy so sympathetic a sense of humour on such short acquaintance.... "But you forgive me?" "Oh, yes," he said generously; "only, of course, I couldn't help feeling it a bit--coming from _you_." "From me?" Miss Searle sat up in her deck-chair and turned to him. "Mr. Staff! you're not flirting with me?" "Heaven forfend!" he cried, so sincerely that both laughed. "Because," said she, sinking back, "I must warn you that Mrs. Ilkington has been talking ..." "Oh," he groaned from his heart--"damn that woman!" There was an instant of silence; then he stole a contrite look at her immobile profile and started to get up. "I--Miss Searle," he stammered--"I beg your pardon ..." "Don't go," she said quietly; "that is, unless you want to. My silence was simply sympathetic." He sat back. "Thank you," he said with gratitude; and for some seconds considered the case of Mrs. Ilkington, not charitably but with murder in his bosom. "Do you mean," he resumed presently, "she has--ah--connected my name with--" "Yes," nodded the girl. "'Something lingering in boiling oil,'" he mused aloud, presently.... "What staggers me is how she found out; I was under the impression that only the persons most concerned knew about it." "Then it's true? You are engaged to marry Miss Landis? Or is that an impertinent question?" Without pause the girl answered herself: "Of course it is; only I couldn't help asking. Please forget I spoke--" "Oh, I don't mind," he said wearily; "now that Mrs. Ilkington has begun to distribute handbills. Only ... I don't know that there's a regular, hard-and-fast engagement: just an understanding." "Thank you," said Miss Searle. "I promise not to speak of it again." She hesitated an instant, then added: "To you or anybody else." "You see," he went on after a little, "I've been working on a play for Miss Landis, under agreement with Jules Max, her manager. They want to use it to open Max's newest Broadway theatre late this autumn. That's why I came across--to find a place in London to bury myself in and work undisturbed. It means a good deal to me--to all of us--this play.... But what I'm getting at is this: Alison--Miss Landis--didn't leave the States this summer; Mrs. Ilkington (she told me at dinner) left New York before I did. So how in Heaven's name--?" "I had known nothing of Mrs. Ilkington at all," said Miss Searle cautiously, "until we met in Paris last month." He was conscious of the hint of uneasiness in her manner, but inclined to assign it to the wrong cause. "I trust I haven't bored you, Miss Searle--talking about myself." "Oh, no; indeed no. You see--" she laughed--"I quite understand; I keep a temperament of my own--if you should happen to wonder why Mrs. Ilkington interests herself in me. I'm supposed to have a voice and to be in training for grand opera." "Not really?"