“You know I’m married, Perry?” said Joan in a low voice.
“Only from what you said a moment ago.”
“Well, I am. We won’t mention his name—for reasons which will appear:
but I’m going to tell you about him because I _must_.” Her tone sank to
a whisper tense and vibrant. “I’ve bottled it up, Perry”—the man
started, and the clasp of the cool fingers became a grip—“till I’m
nearly out of my mind. Think what it means to have no confidant—not a
single soul to talk to who can ever begin to understand. . . . I drove
over here from San Sebastian, praying for death by the way . . . _I came
to find a confidant_—some stranger that I could talk to, under the
mask, and then—then I saw you.”
Peregrine felt rather dazed.
“Let’s get outside,” he said uncertainly.
They made their way through the press, across the echoing hall and on to
the terrace without.
This was silent and starlit, cool with the faint crush of breakers, full
of the airs and graces of the summer night.