So with a grin, and a parting glance at the back of Amy's dark head, off he went.
Pearl watched him go. Then she looked at Amy, who had turned, with apparently great animation, to address one of her numerous admirers hard by.
"I hope," she thought, "he won't over-act it. Men can never do things by halves. And of course, two can play at that game."
The truth of which remark Miss Mendovy was determined to prove. For, during the rest of the afternoon she succeeded in attaching to her charming person a by no means unworthy suitor, a certain good-looking Secretary of Legation, who long had been known to sigh hopelessly for her hand.
Pearl never quite recalled how she got through the rest of the ceremony. Afterwards she remembered vaguely catching a somewhat distant view of their Imperial Majesties seated at a table within the tent, discussing their repast in solitary grandeur. Near them were placed the Imperial Princes and Princesses, and beyond were little tables at which were seated the Ministers of State, and the members of the Corps Diplomatique with their wives and families. She had a dim recollection of someone forcing her to swallow a fragment of paté de foie gras and a glass of champagne, and she once remembered raising her eyes and finding those of Lady Martinworth fixed with a look of mocking enquiry and scrutiny upon her face.
This expression on Lady Martinworth's countenance was an additional shock to the many that Pearl was fated to experience that afternoon. Fortunately shortly after this incident, the Imperial party broke up, thereby allowing the guests the liberty to take their departure, or the long strain on Pearl's nerves, and the dread that Martinworth would again approach her, would inevitably have culminated in a breakdown.
As it was, her first action on reaching the shelter of her home was a characteristic one of her sex. She shut herself into her drawing room, and walking straight up to the glass over the mantelpiece, she gazed at herself for fully two minutes. In spite of the pallor of her cheeks this close examination apparently did not prove otherwise than satisfactory, for there was a slight smile about the lips as she drew the long pins from her hat, and laid her head back on the pillows of the sofa.
She was anxious to collect her thoughts, and if possible, to devise some plan for the immediate future. Whether that plan would ever have been formed it is difficult to say. As it was, her cogitations were speedily interrupted by the simple fact of a violent ring at the door bell.
Pearl was on her feet in an instant, and her hand was pressed against her heart to still its beating.
Who could it be? Was it?---- Yes, it must be Martinworth, who had probably ascertained without difficulty her whereabouts, and had lost no time in following her.