She made no answer. Beside them, Miss Jenny ate ice-cream succulently. All around them were people jostling this way and that, laughing, shouting: but they might have been alone on a mountain-top for all either was aware of them.
"Since I have been in Hunston--just a day," Varney said easily, "I seem to have done nothing but explain over and over that I am not Mr. Stanhope. I got awfully tired of it, Miss Carstairs; it seemed so horribly useless. Like the others, you insisted that I was he. You candidly didn't believe me--"
"I shall make you believe me now," said Varney.
A great hullabaloo suddenly arose around them. Four or five men broke pellmell, and for the most part backwards, out of the swing-doors, evidently ejected from within. A lonely-looking policeman, on guard at the entrance, charged them. The lobby was already thronged; now people retreating before that violent infusion of arms and legs crowded them close.
Varney, standing in front of Miss Carstairs, shielded her from the press, her capable buffer. Soon he noticed that that part of the wall upon which she leaned was not a wall, but a door. He reached past her, turned the knob, revealed a brilliantly-lit little room.
She stepped backward, into the tiny box-office where Ryan had stood two hours before and cynically waited for his sport to begin. It was empty now, offering a perfect refuge. Varney followed and stood with his hand on the knob just inside the door.
"Thank you," said Miss Carstairs, breathing a little rapidly. "The meetings have never been as bad as this before. But--I must not lose sight of Jenny."
"I'm here, Miss Mary," gurgled an ice-creamy voice at the door.
"I think I had better wait outside after all," said Mary. "Mr. Hare will hardly know where to look for me."
"Miss Jenny will be his clew: he couldn't miss her," said Varney. "Let me go on, while I have time. Miss Carstairs, it is not fair to either of us to let matters stay like this. In the cottage last night, you forced me to let you think I was--another man--"
"That is absurd," she said. "How could I possibly force you to say what was not--the fact?"
"Did I really say anything that was not--the fact? I tried particularly not to. But I did let you deceive yourself about it: that is quite true and I'm sorry. I did it because--well, because if I hadn't done it, you were not going to let me walk home with you."