“I see.”

Ashe was becoming conscious of an undercurrent of something not altogether agreeable in the conversation.  It lacked the gay ease of their first interview.  He was not apprehensive lest she might have guessed his secret.  There was, he felt, no possible means by which she could have done that.  Yet the fact remained that those keen blue eyes of hers were looking at him in a peculiar and penetrating manner.  He felt damped.

“It will be nice, being together,” he said feebly.

“Very!” said Joan.

There was a pause.

“I thought I would come and tell you.”

“Quite so.”

There was another pause.

“It seems so funny that you should be going out as a lady’s maid.”

“Yes?”

“But, of course, you have done it before.”

“Yes.”

“The really extraordinary thing is that we should be going to the same people.”

“Yes.”

“It—­it’s remarkable, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

Ashe reflected.  No; he did not appear to have any further remarks to make.

“Good-by for the present,” he said.

“Good-by.”

Ashe drifted out.  He was conscious of a wish that he understood girls.  Girls, in his opinion, were odd.

When he had gone Joan Valentine hurried to the door and, having opened it an inch, stood listening.  When the sound of his door closing came to her she ran down the stairs and out into Arundell Street.  She went to the Hotel Mathis.

“I wonder,” she said to the sad-eyed waiter, “if you have a copy of the Morning Post?”

The waiter, a child of romantic Italy, was only too anxious to oblige youth and beauty.  He disappeared and presently returned with a crumpled copy.  Joan thanked him with a bright smile.

Back in her room, she turned to the advertisement pages.  She knew that life was full of what the unthinking call coincidences; but the miracle of Ashe having selected by chance the father of Aline Peters as an employer was too much of a coincidence for her.  Suspicion furrowed her brow.

It did not take her long to discover the advertisement that had sent Ashe hurrying in a taxicab to the offices of Messrs. Mainprice, Mainprice & Boole.  She had been looking for something of the kind.

She read it through twice and smiled.  Everything was very clear to her.  She looked at the ceiling above her and shook her head.

“You are quite a nice young man, Mr. Marson,” she said softly; “but you mustn’t try to jump my claim.  I dare say you need that money too; but I’m afraid you must go without.  I am going to have it—­and nobody else!”

CHAPTER V

The four-fifteen express slid softly out of Paddington Station and Ashe Marson settled himself in the corner seat of his second-class compartment.  Opposite him Joan Valentine had begun to read a magazine.  Along the corridor, in a first-class smoking compartment, Mr. Peters was lighting a big black cigar.  Still farther along the corridor, in a first-class non-smoking compartment, Aline Peters looked through the window and thought of many things.