There was no answer to the bell.  Madame Piriac rang again, and there was still no answer.  And the dog had ceased to bark.

“Mon Dieu!” she muttered.  “Have you observed, darling, that all the blinds are down on this facade?”

She rang a third time.  Then, without a word, they returned slowly to the garden front.

“How mysterious! Mon Dieu! How English it all is!” muttered Madame Piriac.  “It gives me fear.”

Audrey had almost decided definitely that she was saved when she happened to glance through the open window of the drawing-room.  She thought she saw a flicker within.  She looked again.  She could not be mistaken.  Then she noticed that all the dust sheets had been removed from the furniture, that the carpet had been laid, that a table had been set for tea, that there were flowers and china and a teapot and bread-and-butter and a kettle and a spirit-lamp on the table.  The flicker was the flicker of the blue flame of the spirit-lamp.  The kettle over it was puffing out steam.

Audrey exclaimed, within herself: 

“Aguilar!”

She had caught him at last.  There were two cups and saucers—­the best ancient blue-and-white china, out of the glass-fronted china cupboard in that very room!  The celibate Aguilar, never known to consort with anybody at all, was clearly about to entertain someone to tea, and the aspect of things showed that he meant to do it very well.  True, there was no cake, but the bread-and-butter was expertly cut and attractively arranged.  Audrey felt sure that she was on the track of Aguilar’s double life, and that a woman was concerned therein.  She was angry, but she was also enormously amused and uplifted.  She no longer cared the least bit about the imminent danger threatening her incognito.  Her sole desire was to entrap Aguilar, and with deep joy she pictured his face when he should come into the room with his friend and find the mistress of the house already installed.

“I think we had better go in here, darling,” she said to Madame Piriac, with her hand on the French window.  “There is no other entrance.”

Madame Piriac looked at her.

“Eh bien! It is your country, not mine.  You know the habits.  I follow you,” said Madame Piriac calmly.  “After all, my dear little Audrey ought to be delighted to see me.  I have several times told her that I should come.  All the same, I expected to announce myself....  What a charming room!  So this is the English provinces!”

The room was certainly agreeable to the eye.  And Audrey seemed to see it afresh, to see it for the first time in her life.  And she thought:  “Can this be the shabby old drawing-room that I hated so?”

The kettle continued to puff vigorously.

“If they don’t come soon,” said Audrey, “the water will be all boiled away and the kettle burnt.  Suppose we make the tea?”

Madame Piriac raised her eyebrows.