Wingrave had just come in from an early gallop. His pale cheeks were slightly flushed, and his eyes were bright. He had been riding hard to escape from disconcerting thoughts. He looked in at the study, and found Aynesworth with a mass of correspondence before him.
"Anything important?" he asked.
"Not yet," Aynesworth answered. "The letters marked private I have sent up to your room. By the bye, there was something I wanted to tell you."Wingrave closed the door.
"Well?" he said.
"I was up in the gallery of the Opera House last night," Aynesworth said, "with a--person who saw you only once, soon after I first came to you--before America. You were some distance away, and yet--my friend recognized you."Wingrave shrugged his shoulders.
"That, of course, is possible," he answered. "It really does not matter so very much unless they knew me--as Wingrave Seton!""My friend," Aynesworth said, "recognized you as Sir Wingrave Seton."Wingrave frowned thoughtfully for a moment.
"Who was it?" he asked.
"A most unlikely person," Aynesworth remarked smiling. "Do you remember, when we went down to Tredowen just before we left for America, a little, long-legged, black-frocked child, whom we met in the gardens--the organist's daughter, you know?""What of her?" Wingrave asked.
"It was she who was with me," Aynesworth remarked. "It was she who saw you in the box with the Marchioness of Westchester."Aynesworth was puzzled by the intentness with which Wingrave was regarding him. Impenetrable though the man was, Aynesworth, who had not yet lost his early trick of studying him closely, knew that, for some reason or other, his intelligence had proved disturbing.
"Have you then--kept up your acquaintance with this child?" he demanded.
Aynesworth shook his head.
"She is not a child any longer, but a very beautiful young woman," he said. "Imet her again quite by accident. She is up in London, studying art at the studio of an old friend of mine who has a class of girls. I called to see him the other afternoon, and recognized her.""Your acquaintance," Wingrave remarked, "has progressed rapidly if she accepts your escort--to the gallery of the Opera!""It was scarcely like that," Aynesworth explained. "I met her and Mrs.
Tresfarwin on the way there, and asked to be allowed to accompany them. Mrs.
Tresfarwin was once your housekeeper, I think, at Tredowen.""And did you solve the mystery of this relation of her father who turned up so opportunely?" Wingrave asked.
Aynesworth shook his head.
"She told me nothing about him," he answered.
Wingrave passed on to his own room. His breakfast was on the table awaiting him, and a little pile of letters and newspapers stood by his plate. His servant, his head groom, and his chauffeur were there to receive their orders for the morning. About him were all the evidences of his well-ordered life. He sent both the men away and locked the door. It was half an hour before he touched either his breakfast or his letters . . . .
He lunched at Westchester House in obedience to a somewhat imperative summons.
There were other guests there, whom, however, he outstayed. As soon as they were alone, his hostess touched him on the arm and led him to her own room.
"At last!" she exclaimed, with an air of real relief. "There, sit down opposite to me, please--I want to watch your face."She was a little paler than usual, and he noticed that she had avoided talking much to him at luncheon time. And yet he thought that he had never seen her more beautiful. Something in her face had altered. He could not tell what it was for he was not a man of much experience as regarded her sex. Yet, in a vague sort of way, he understood the change. A certain part of the almost insolent quietness, the complete self-assurance of her manner, had gone. She was a little more like an ordinary woman!
"Lady Ruth proved herself an excellent tactician last night," she remarked.
"She has given me an exceedingly uncomfortable few hours. For you, well for you it was a respite, wasn't it?""I don't know that I should call it exactly that," he answered thoughtfully.
She looked at him steadfastly, almost wistfully.
