"It isn't as though she were the sort of girl who can't take care of herself," said Lady St. Craye to the Inward Monitor who was buzzing its indiscreet common-places in her ear. "I've really done her a good turn by sending her to Grez. No--it's not in the least compromising for a girl to stay at the same hotel. And besides, there are lots of amusing people there, I expect. She'll have a delightful time, and get to know that Temple boy really well. I'm sure he'd repay investigation. If I weren't a besotted fool I could have pursued those researches myself. But it's not what's worth having that one wants; it's--it's what one does want. Yes. That's all."
Paris was growing intolerable. But for--well, a thousand reasons--Lady St. Craye would already have left it. The pavements were red-hot. When one drove it was through an air like the breath from the open mouth of a furnace.
She kept much within doors, filled her rooms with roses, and lived with every window open. Her balcony, too, was full of flowers, and the striped sun-blinds beyond each open window kept the rooms in pleasant shadow.
"But suppose something happens to her--all alone there," said the Inward Monitor.
"Nothing will. She's not that sort of girl." Her headache had been growing worse these three days. The Inward Monitor might have had pity, remembering that--but no.
"You told Him that all girls were the same sort of girls," said the pitiless voice.
"I didn't mean in that way. I suppose you'd have liked me to write that anonymous letter and restore her to the bosom of her furious family? I've done the girl a good turn--for what she did for me. She's a good little thing--too good for him, even if I didn't happen to--And Temple's her ideal mate. I wonder if he's found it out yet? He must have by now: three weeks in the same hotel."
Temple, however, was not in the same hotel. The very day of the river rescue and the double omelette he had moved his traps a couple of miles down the river to Montigny.
A couple of miles is a good distance. Also a very little way, as you choose to take it.
"You know it was a mean trick," said the Inward Monitor. "Why not have let the girl go away where she could be alone--and get over it?"
"Oh, be quiet!" said Lady St. Craye. "I never knew myself so tiresome before. I think I must be going to be ill. My head feels like an ice in an omelette."