As he had no invisible cloak, and couldn't crawl under a sofa, poor Robert was obliged to say pleasantly, "How do you do?"
Standing back a little, trying to look about two inches tall instead of five foot ten, I watched the greeting. I wanted to judge from it, if I could, to what extent the old acquaintance had been kept up. But I might have saved myself waste of brain tissue. Robert was anxious to leave no mystery.
"Princess," he said, hastily, when he had taken his guest's slim hand in its gray glove, "Princess, I think you must have heard of Miss Opal Fawcett."
"Oh, yes. And we have met—once," I replied.
Opal's narrow gray eyes turned to me—not without reluctance I thought.
"I remember well," she murmured, in her plaintive voice. "I never forget a face. You were Miss Courtenaye then. Lately I've been hearing of you from Miss Arnold, who used to be my secretary, and is now yours."
I was thankful she didn't bring in June's name!
"Miss Fawcett and I have known each other a good many years," Robert hurried on. "She was once in a play with me, before she found her real métier. She kindly comes to see me now and then, when she can take a day off."
"I want to bid you good-bye—if you are really going out of England," Opal said.
She had ceased to look at me now, but I went on looking hard at her. She was in what might be a spirit conception of a motor costume: smoke gray velvet, and yards of long, floating veil shot from gray to mauve. She wore a close toque with two little jutting Mercury wings, from behind which those yards of unnecessary chiffon fell. She had a narrow oval face, which Nature and (I thought) Art combined to make pale as pearl. Her hair, pushed forward by the toque, was so colourless a brown that it looked like thick shadow. She had a beautifully cut, delicate nose, but her lips were thin and the upper one rather long and flat, otherwise she would have been pretty. Even as it was she had a kind of fascination, and I thought her the most graceful, willowy creature I'd ever seen.