After perhaps a minute of this silence, I rose.
“You wish to be alone, mademoiselle?”
She did not reply and I was turning to leave when she looked up quickly. “I do not wish you to go, Mr. Donnington.” Then putting aside the thoughts, whatever they were, which had been troubling her, she laughed and added: “Why should I? It is pleasant to meet an old acquaintance. You have come through Paris on your way here, of course. Were you there long?”
I was more perplexed by the change of tone and manner than by her former silent preoccupation.
“I did not come through Paris,” I replied, as I resumed my seat. “I came from England in the Stella—my yacht.”
“You have had delightful weather for your cruise.”
“I was not cruising in that sense. The Stella is a very fast boat and I came in her because I could get here more quickly.”
“Our Portuguese railways are very slow, of course, and the Spanish trains no better. It is a very tedious journey from Paris.”
“Very,” I agreed. Whether she wished to make small talk in order to avoid my explanation, I did not know; but I fell in with her wish and then tried to lead round to the old time in Paris.
She turned my references to it very skilfully however, and after my third unsuccessful attempt, she herself referred to it in a way that forced me to regard it as a sealed page.