“Well, Maud,” she said. “Here I am.”

Maud moved then, although she made no gesture of greeting. “So I see,” she said. “Although I don’t know exactly why.”

“Why not?” said Bessie, and taking off her hat ran her fingers through her hair. “I wrote you and wired you. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

It was then that I dropped the vase. An old Dresden one at that, but Maud never noticed.

“I thought we had an agreement,” she said coldly. “I paid you to get out and stay out. I paid you a lot, you may remember. That agreement still holds, so far as I am concerned.”

But the crash had attracted Bessie’s attention to me. She looked at me with interest.

“We can discuss that when we’re alone, can’t we? Just now I’d like a bath. I’ve been motoring for two days.”

I think Maud saw then that she was helpless. She asked me to ring, and Stevens, the second footman, came and took Bessie’s bags out of the car. Bessie was entirely nonchalant. She told Stevens to have her car taken around to the garage. Then she got out a small gold case and lit a cigarette.

“Where’s Tony?” she inquired.

“In town. He still works, as you may remember.”

“And how!” said Bessie. She glanced around her, giving me a good hard look.

“Do I know you?” she said. “I don’t seem to remember you.”

“Miss Abbott is staying here,” Maud said hastily. “She is my secretary and my friend. I hope you’ll remember that.”

Bessie raised her eyebrows. “Like that,” she said softly. “It must be a nice cozy job, Miss Abbott. Congratulations.”

I saw red for a minute, which probably saved me from a retort. But Reynolds had appeared by that time and after a bow to Bessie, who ignored it, was, so to speak, standing by. I have often thought how many scenes are saved by servants, especially upper-class ones. Certainly Reynolds did so that day. Maud became the mistress and hostess at once, although her face remained set.

“Miss Bessie will have her old rooms,” she told Reynolds. “Tell Mrs. Partridge to have them opened. And there will be four for dinner. Or are you staying to dinner?” she asked Bessie.

“I wrote you that I meant to stay awhile,” said Bessie, raising her eyebrows. “Don’t tell me Tony intercepted my letters!”

I had known from Bessie’s first mention of letters that they were the ones Tony had taken. Now I began to pick up the flowers from the floor, to hide my face, but neither of them noticed me.

“I see he did,” Bessie said, smiling her amused smile. “How like him! Well, tell old Partridge not to have a fit—and, Reynolds, bring me up a Scotch and soda. I’m thirsty!”

I suppose I should have known. It seems impossible that I had not known. I had lived for three months in the house. My relations with Maud Wainwright had been more or less intimate. I would have said, until the day when she came back from the city and took to her bed, that she had no secrets; that she was congenitally unable to keep a secret.