As soon as I returned to the end of the terrace, Bakkus rose and took his leave. Auriol and I were alone. Of course other humans were clustering round tables all the length of the terrace. But we had our little end corner to ourselves. I sat down next to her. "Well?" said I. She bent forward, and her face was that of the woman whom I had met in the rain and mud and stark reality of the war. "Why didn't you tell me?" Chapter XX If a glance could destroy, if Lady Auriol had been a Gorgon or a basilisk or a cockatrice, then had I been a slain Anthony Hylton. "Why didn't you tell me?" The far-flung gesture of her arm ending in outspread fingers might have been that of Elodie. "Tell you what, my dear?" said I. "The whole wretched tragedy. I came to you a year ago with my heart in my hand--the only human creature living who I thought could help me. And you've let me down like this. It's damnable!" "An honourable man," said I, nettled, "doesn't betray confidences." "An honourable man! I like that! I gave you my confidences. Haven't you betrayed them?" "Not a bit," said I. "Not the faintest hint of what you have said to me have I whispered into the ear of man or woman." She fumed. "If you had, you would be--unmentionable." "Precisely. And I should have been equally undeserving of mention, if I had told you of the secret, or double, or ex-war--however you like to describe it--life of our friend." "The thing is not on all fours," she said with a snap of her fingers. "You could have given me the key to the mystery--such as it is. You could have prevented me from making a fool of myself. You could, Tony. From the very start." "At the very start, I knew little more than you did. Nothing save that he was bred in a circus, where I met him thirty years ago. I knew nothing more of his history till this April, when he told me he was Petit Patpu of the music-halls. His confidence has been given me bit by bit. The last time I saw you I had never heard of Madame Patou. It was you that guessed the woman in his life. I had no idea whether you were right or wrong." "Yet you could have given me a hint--the merest hint--without betraying confidences--as you call it," she mouthed my phrase ironically. "It was not playing the game." "I gathered," said I, "that playing the game was what both of you had decided to do, in view of the obviously implied lady in the background." "Well?" she challenged. "If it's a question of playing the game"--I had carried the war into the enemy's quarters--"may I repeat my original rude question this morning? What the devil are you doing here?" She turned on me in a fury. "How dare you insinuate such a thing?" "You've not come to Royat for the sake of my beautiful eyes." "I'm under no obligation to tell you why I've come to Royat. Let us say my liver's out of order." "Then my dear," said I, "you have come to the wrong place to cure it."