Then very slowly she left the room, walked up the
stairs, made her way to her own little suite of apartments, and
locked the door.
CHAPTER XXX
It was a happy, if a trifle hysterical little dinner party that
evening at Mainsail Haul. Philippa was at times unusually silent,
but Helen had expanded in the joy of her great happiness. Richard,
shaved and with his hair cut, attired once more in the garb of
civilisation, seemed a different person. Even in these few hours
the lines about his mouth seemed less pronounced. They talked
freely of Maderstrom.
"A regular 'Vanity Fair' problem," Richard declared, balancing his
wine glass between his fingers, "a problem, too, which I can't say
I have solved altogether yet. The only thing is that if he is
really going to-night, I don't see why I shouldn't let the matter
drift out of my mind."
"It is so much better," Helen agreed. "Try as hard as ever I can,
I cannot picture his doing any harm to anybody. And as for any
information he may have gained here, well, I think that we can
safely let him take it back to Germany."
"He was always," Richard continued reminiscently, "a sort of cross
between a dreamer, an idealist, and a sportsman. There was never
anything of the practical man of affairs about him. He was
scrupulously honourable, and almost a purist in his outlook upon
life.
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