“I suppose it’s Bessie,” he said.

“Yes. She’s at the house.”

“I see.”

I started the engine after that. He said nothing more, as though he was bracing himself for what was waiting for him. Only as we reached the entrance to the Cloisters he asked me if I minded driving on a bit. I did so, and it was a half hour later when I let him out at the house and drove back to the garage. He had told me little, except that he had tried to head her off. She had both written and wired to Maud, and he had intercepted the letters and the telegram.

“I told her to stay away, but if you knew her you would realize what good that did,” he said.

I was glad he had that half hour to get ready. It was all he had. I dropped him at the house, and Bessie’s cool voice spoke from a long chair on the terrace.

“Hello, Tony,” it drawled. “Been having a ride with the pretty secretary?”

I was boiling as I took my car to the garage and walked back to the house. Neither Bessie nor Tony was in sight, but Maud was coming down the stairs and I took my cue from her. Her face was quiet. Also she had dressed for dinner in long trailing black, and she wore her pearls. Evidently the idea was to be business as usual.

“You’d better hurry, Pat,” she said. “Where on earth have you been?”

“We took a little drive.”

She nodded, and I knew she understood.

I put on a printed chiffon that evening. It was what Bessie would think a secretary should wear, with short sleeves and a high neck, although it swept the ground. But I might have spared myself the trouble, for Bessie pointedly ignored me. Not that she gave me any particular thought at the time. It was merely her way of putting me in my place. Outside of that we might have been any four well-bred people dining anywhere, from cocktails in the library to the end of Pierre’s long and elaborate dinner. Bessie did most of the talking: Paris, London, Vienna. Tony hardly spoke, and I was still the secretary, to be seen and not heard. I was proud of Maud, however. She looked the great lady that night, quiet and regal, with that mass of fair hair piled high and her really beautiful neck and shoulders gleaming in the candlelight. Beside her Bessie, heavily made up and in a full white skirt and red cocktail jacket, looked cheap and common.

We went back to the library for coffee and liqueurs. Bessie was restless, and I knew she was waiting to talk to Tony. But Maud was on guard.

“We might have some bridge,” she said briskly, and without waiting ordered a table.

It was a strange game. Nobody was paying any real attention to it. I myself saw Maud revoke twice, without anyone’s discovering it. At the end I was in ten dollars, most of it from Bessie, and she paid it ungraciously.