‘I suppose I’m shocking you terribly,’ she remarked to him.

[Illustration:  ‘I suppose I’m shocking you terribly.’]

‘I don’t think there’s anything you could do that would shock me now,’ he replied.  It was rather a peculiar retort, especially as he laid a faint accent on the ‘you.’  Evidently he wished to have his revenge for what she had said to him at dinner.

‘I smoke even in bed,’ said Marion, regarding him steadily.  I was at a loss to understand why she told this deliberate falsehood.

‘So do I,’ said William calmly.

‘I smoke in the bath,’ continued Marion.

‘By Jove, so do I,’ said William, looking at her with a new interest.  ‘But don’t you find it rather awkward when you’re washing your back?’

Marion looked rather scandalized, as though she considered William’s remark in bad taste.  But she had only herself to blame after all.  She was silent and rather moody after that, until the episode of the photograph occurred.  We were assembled in the drawing-room, and I suddenly noticed that a photo of Marion which stands on the mantelpiece had been removed from its frame.

‘Why, Marion, what has become of your photo?’ I inquired.

There was, after all, nothing unusual in its disappearance.  It was one that she did not like and she had often threatened to remove it.  What was my astonishment now to see her spring to her feet and, going white with suppressed anger, exclaim, ’Who has dared to take it?  It is a piece of unwarrantable impertinence.  Who has dared, I say?’

I saw William looking at her in surprise—­it was, indeed, something even deeper than that.  Fascinated horror seems a more apt expression.

‘I insist on its being recovered,’ went on Marion.

A strange exclamation from William made us all look at him.  ‘Women,’ he said, ‘are beyond me—­utterly beyond me, I repeat.’

‘I’m glad you admit it,’ snapped Marion.

‘In guile,’ he continued coldly.  ’I suppose, now, you have never heard of a woman thrusting her photograph where it is not wanted accompanied by verse of an amorous character?’

Marion looked contemptuously at him.  ’What on earth are you raving about?’ she inquired.

Henry and I intervened at this moment and changed the subject, feeling that a quarrel between them was imminent.  It was all very strange and puzzling.  But the strangest thing was yet to come.  I had accompanied Marion upstairs to put on her cloak before departure, and when we descended William had vanished.  Henry related that he was just answering a call on the ’phone when he saw William dash past him into the small lobby off the hall, possess himself of hat and coat, and, after muttering some words of apology, go forth into the darkness.

‘How eccentric—­and ill-behaved, too,’ I commented.  ’It looks almost as if he wished to avoid accompanying Marion home.’