“Yes, sir.”
“Does she live here?”
The servant opened her eyes.
“Lor’, yes, sir! This is ’er ’ouse!”
Hammond considered for a minute.
“Well, you can tell Mrs. Yorke I am here, if you like.”
The servant nodded and went out, leaving him to his reflections.
In love, as in war, there is an armed neutrality when the period of friendship has passed away, but neither side is yet ready for a declaration. Just such a stage had been reached in the joint history of John Hammond and Belle Yorke.
He had met her in Bohemia, that pleasant country which the passing tourist sees only in its brightest garb, when the trees are green in the valleys and the vines are ripening in the warm sunshine. The manners of Bohemia are freer than those of other lands, and among that friendly folk the course of acquaintanceship between a man and a woman is not curbed and governed and interpreted quite as it is in the dominions of society.
So the millionaire had drifted into a friendship with the music-hall singer without any after-thought; and when the after-thought had gradually grown up of its own accord, he had found it the most comfortable plan to shut his eyes to it and make believe it was not there.