“So far as you yourself are concerned, my dear Gabrielle,” he laughed, without deigning to look up from the papers he was scanning, “I offered you my friendship, but you refused it.”

“Friendship!” she cried, in sarcasm.  “Your friendship, Mr. Flockart!  What, pray, is it worth?  You surely know what people are saying—­the construction they are placing upon your friendship for Lady Heyburn?”

“The misconstruction, you mean,” he exclaimed airily, correcting her.  “Well, to me it matters not a single jot.  The world is always ill-disposed and ill-natured.  A woman can surely have a male friend without being subject to hostile and venomous criticism?”

“When the male friend is an honest man,” said the girl meaningly.

He shrugged his shoulders and continued reading, as though utterly disregarding her presence.

What should she do?  How should she act?  She knew quite well that from those papers he could gather no knowledge of her father’s affairs, unless he held some secret knowledge of the true meaning of those cryptic terms and allusions.  To her they were all as Hebrew.

Only that very day Monsieur Goslin had again made one of those unexpected visits, remaining from eleven in the morning until three; afterwards taking his leave, and driving back in the car to Auchterarder Station.  She had not seen him; but he had brought from Paris for her a big box of chocolates tied with violet ribbons, as had been his habit for quite a couple of years past.  She was a particular favourite with the polite, middle-aged Frenchman.

Her father’s demeanour was always more thoughtful and serious after the stranger’s visits.  Business matters put before him by his visitor always, it seemed, required much deep thought and ample consideration.

Some papers brought to her father by Goslin she had placed in the safe earlier that evening, and these, she recognised, were now in Flockart’s hands.  She had not read them herself, and had no idea of their contents.  They were, to her, never interesting.

“Mr. Flockart,” she exclaimed very firmly at last, “I ask you to kindly replace those papers in my father’s safe, relock it, and hand me the key.”

“That I certainly refuse to do,” was the man’s defiant reply, bowing as he spoke.

“You would prefer, then, that I should go up to my father and explain all I have seen?”

“I repeat what I have already said.  You are perfectly at liberty to tell whom you like.  It makes no difference whatever to me.  And, well, I don’t want to be disturbed just now.”  Rising, he walked across to the writing-table, and taking a piece of note-paper bearing the Heyburn crest, rapidly pencilled some memoranda upon it.  He was, it seemed, taking a copy of one of the documents.

Suddenly she sprang towards him, crying, “Give me that paper!  Give it to me at once, I say!  It is my father’s.”

He straightened himself from the table, pulled down his white dress-vest with its amethyst buttons, and, looking straight into her face, ordered her to leave the room.