“Why?” said Eve with quiet intensity. She knew from experience that Miss Clarkson, unless firmly checked, would pirouette round and round the point for minutes without ever touching it.
“Why?” echoed Miss Clarkson, blinking as if the word was something solid that had struck her unexpectedly.
“Why was Cynthia in floods of tears?”
“But I’m telling you, my dear. That man has left her!”
“Left her!”
“They had a quarrel, and he walked straight out of the hotel. That was the day before yesterday, and he has not been back since. This afternoon the curtest note came from him to say that he never intended to return. He had secretly and in a most underhand way arranged for his luggage to be removed from the hotel to a District Messenger office, and from there he has taken it no one knows where.
