“I don’t know what began it.
First she began to talk—”
“Who?”
“Violet McKisco.”
He lowered his voice as if there were people under the bench.
“But don’t mention the Divers because he made threats against anybody who mentioned it.”
“Who did?”
“Tommy Barban, so don’t you say I so much as mentioned them.
None of us ever found out anyhow what it was Violet had to say because he kept interrupting her, and then her husband got into it and now, my dear, we have the duel.
This morning—at five o’clock—in an hour.”
He sighed suddenly thinking of his own griefs.
“I almost wish it were I.
I might as well be killed now I have nothing to live for.”
He broke off and rocked to and fro with sorrow.
Again the iron shutter parted above and the same British voice said:
“Rilly, this must stup immejetely.”
Simultaneously Abe North, looking somewhat distracted, came out of the hotel, perceived them against the sky, white over the sea.
Rosemary shook her head warningly before he could speak and they moved another bench further down the road.
Rosemary saw that Abe was a little tight.
“What are YOU doing up?” he demanded.
“I just got up.”
She started to laugh, but remembering the voice above, she restrained herself.
“Plagued by the nightingale,” Abe suggested, and repeated, “probably plagued by the nightingale.
Has this sewing-circle member told you what happened?”
Campion said with dignity:
“I only know what I heard with my own ears.”
He got up and walked swiftly away; Abe sat down beside Rosemary.
“Why did you treat him so badly?”
“Did I?” he asked surprised.
“He’s been weeping around here all morning.”
“Well, maybe he’s sad about something.”
“Maybe he is.”
“What about a duel?
Who’s going to duel?
I thought there was something strange in that car.
Is it true?”
“It certainly is coo-coo but it seems to be true.”
X
The trouble began at the time Earl Brady’s car passed the Divers’ car stopped on the road—Abe’s account melted impersonally into the thronged night—Violet McKisco was telling Mrs. Abrams something she had found out about the Divers—she had gone upstairs in their house and she had come upon something there which had made a great impression on her.
But Tommy is a watch-dog about the Divers.
As a matter of fact she is inspiring and formidable—but it’s a mutual thing, and the fact of The Divers together is more important to their friends than many of them realize.
Of course it’s done at a certain sacrifice—sometimes they seem just rather charming figures in a ballet, and worth just the attention you give a ballet, but it’s more than that—you’d have to know the story.
Anyhow Tommy is one of those men that Dick’s passed along to Nicole and when Mrs. McKisco kept hinting at her story, he called them on it. He said:
“Mrs. McKisco, please don’t talk further about Mrs. Diver.”
“I wasn’t talking to you,” she objected.
“I think it’s better to leave them out.”
“Are they so sacred?”
“Leave them out.
Talk about something else.”
He was sitting on one of the two little seats beside Campion.