CHAPTER XXIII—The Talk in the Garden
She was so out of breath that at first it seemed as if she could not speak. He could hear her hurried breathing, almost like the catch of a sob, and in the moonlight he could see fairly clearly her flushed face, under the hat, and her tall, rather imperious figure. But he could not make out the expression of her eyes. Nevertheless, as he peered curiously into them, the thought suddenly struck him: “She is angry with me.”
“Mr. Carpentaria, I want to have a word with you,” she said at length, stiffly.
“My dear Miss Dartmouth,” he answered in his courtly and elaborate manner, “I shall be delighted. What can I do for you? I regret very much that you should have had to run after me like this.”
“I’ve been following you up for quite a long time,” she remarked, in a more friendly tone. It appeared as if his attitude and greeting had made some impression on her, in spite of herself. “First I went to your office. Then to the strong-rooms, then to the garage, then to the strong-rooms again, and now I’m here. I saw you crossing the gardens. Nobody seemed to be inclined to give me any information about you.”
“No?” he murmured, in a cautious interrogative. “Now tell me; how can I be of service to you?”
She scanned his features. They were alone together in the midst of the immense gardens. A hundred yards away was the bandstand, the scene of the greatest triumphs of his life. And yet in that moment his triumphs seemed nothing to him as he stood under her gaze. Her personality affected him powerfully. He said to himself that no woman had ever looked at him like that. There was no admiration in her glance, no prejudice either for or against him; nothing but a candid and judicial inquiry. “I hope I shall come well out of this scrutiny,” his thoughts ran. And the masculine desire formed obscurely in his breast to make this girl think favourably of him, to make her admire him, love him, worship him. He felt that to see love in these calm, courageous, independent eyes of hers would be a recompense and a reward for all he had suffered in the forty years of his existence. In a word she piqued him. He little knew that up to that very evening she had worshipped him afar off as women do worship their heroes.
“Nobody ill, I hope,” he ventured.