Then the unexpected meeting with Jane Gerson, the little American he had mourned as lost in the fury of the war. Ah, that was a joy not unmixed with regrets! What did she think of him? First, he had been forced coldly to deny the acquaintance that had meant much to him in moments of recollection; then, he had attempted a lame explanation, which explained nothing and must have left her more mystified than before. In fact, he had frankly thrown himself on the mercy of a girl on whom he had not the shadow of claim beyond the poor equity of a chance friendship--an incident she might consider as merely one of a day's travel as far as he could know. He had stood before her caught in a deceit, for on the occasion of that never-to-be-forgotten ride from Calais to Paris he had represented himself as hurrying back to Egypt, and here she found him still out of uniform and in a hotel in Gibraltar.
Beyond all this, Jane Gerson was going to the governor's house as a guest. She, whom he had forced, ever so cavalierly, into a promise to keep secret her half knowledge of the double game he was playing, was going to be on the intimate ground of association with the one man in Gibraltar who by a crook of his finger could end suspicion by a firing squad. This breezy little baggage from New York carried his life balanced on the rosy tip of her tongue. She could be careless or she could be indifferent; in either case it would be bandaged eyes and the click of shells going home for him.
It was Almer who interrupted Woodhouse's troubled train of thought.
"Captain Woodhouse will report for signal duty on the Rock to-morrow, I suppose?" he insinuated, coming down to where Woodhouse was standing before the fireplace. He made a show of tidying up the scattered magazines and folders on the table.
"Report for signal duty?" the other echoed coldly. "How did you know I was to report for signal duty here?"
"In the press a few weeks ago," the hotel keeper hastily explained. "Your transfer from the Nile country was announced. We poor people here in Gibraltar, we have so little to think about, even such small details of news----"
"Ah, yes. Quite so." Woodhouse tapped back a yawn.
"Your journey here from your station on the Nile--it was without incident?" Almer eyed his guest closely. The latter permitted his eyes to rest on Almer's for a minute before replying.