"I shall be frank," he replied readily. "The reason you don't turn me over to the police is the very simple one that you don't want to embarrass the mistress of the house yonder by causing the light of publicity to beat upon her very charming head. You wish to save her annoyance, and possibly something much graver. I can see that you are impressed; but it ought to please you to know that I share your feeling of delicacy where she is concerned. And let me add that the Count Montani is animated by like feeling. So there we are, exactly on the same ground!"
"You haven't answered my questions!" I blustered to hide my annoyance at being thrust further into the dark. "You don't understand Mrs. Bashford," I went on hurriedly. "It is inconceivable that any one should wish to injure her or that she could have committed any act that would cause her to be spied upon. She's tremendously imaginative; she indulges in little fancies that are a part of her charm!"
"Little fancies!" he repeated, hiding a yawn. "It's deplorable for a pretty woman to have an imagination; there's danger there!"
"Your philosophy bores me," I said, and left him. He had lied about the snoring of the guards--Antoine satisfied me of that--but I gave instructions to double the watch.
I wanted to be alone and struck off for a wood that lay on the northern end of the estate. This was the most picturesque spot on the property, a wild confusion of trees and boulders. On a summit in the midst of it Uncle Bash had built a platform round a majestic pine from which to view the Sound. I mounted the ladder and was brushing the dead leaves from the bench when, somewhere below me and farther on, I heard voices.
I flattened myself on the platform, listening intently. A stiff breeze from the Sound flung the voices clearly to my hiding-place, and I became aware that Alice and Mrs. Farnsworth were holding a colloquy in what seemed to be the vein of their whimsical make-believe. That they should be doing this in the depth of the woodland merely for their own amusement did not surprise me--nothing they could have done would have astonished me--but the tone of their talk changed abruptly.
"Try it from that boulder there, Alice," said Mrs. Farnsworth. "It's an ideal place, created for the very purpose."
