He came sliding over the polished floor, took Aunt Lily’s white-gloved hand in his and covered it with kisses.
“Forgive me,” he said in French. “I do apologise, I grovel at your feet, madame. I was a fool, an ingrate. My good friend, the Herr Baron, tells me you have forgiven me.”
“We will not speak of it again,” Aunt Lily said.
“You are enchanting, an angel from Heaven itself,” Pierre Gozlin enthused in enraptured tones.
‘He is ridiculous,’ Gardenia thought.
Then she saw the expression in his eyes and felt as though a sudden cold wind had made the gooseflesh rise on her bare skin.
‘No, he is evil,’ she decided and was most thankful when she found at dinner that Pierre Gozlin was placed on Aunt Lily’s right and a long way from where she was sitting.
He had drunk a great deal at dinn
