“To avoid me? You need not deny it, Lawrence, it is very natural she should. However, I have something she ought, in justice, to see. Will you tell me where you are staying?”
“At the Hotel d’Albion, close by. If you will tell me where you are, Norah, I will call upon you to-morrow, and take charge of anything you may have for her.”
“Thank you, that will be best,” she answered. “Don’t let me keep you from Lady Gwendolyn. I am at the Grand Hotel, number forty three; but don’t come before noon. I sleep so wretchedly nowadays, that I am glad to rest in the morning. If Lady Gwendolyn minds your coming, write me a line instead, and I shall understand. I think if I had a husband I cared for I should be awfully jealous.”
“Not if he gave you no cause, I hope.”
“Perhaps. But do go. I wouldn’t for the world add to my offenses in your wife’s eyes by exposing her to annoyance. She is much too handsome to be a minute alone in the streets of Paris.”
“True,” he said, and hurried off.
Lady Gwendolyn was standing at a book-shop waiting for him, and put her arm into his without a word. Neither did he make any remark. He thought it best not to speak of Mrs. O’Hara, until he had heard what she had to say on the morrow. Lady Gwendolyn was unusually grave and quiet for the rest of the day, and if he happened to raise his eyes suddenly he caught a very wistful look of the dark eyes; but he bided his time, and still said nothing.
That night when Lady Gwendolyn fancied that her husband was asleep she cried softly to herself, for the string of old, sad memories in her heart had been too much for her, and she wondered fearfully if this woman had come to take her husband from her as she had taken Percy Gray from poor Lady Maria.
“She is tired, poor child!” he said to himself; and, leaving word with her maid that she was not to rise a moment earlier than she felt inclined, on his account, as he was going for a walk, he amused himself with a morning visit to the Palais Royale.
Returning about ten o’clock, he was met at the door of the salon by Phœbe, who said that her mistress begged him to excuse her, as she had a tiresome headache, and would lie down for another hour. This was the first time Colonel Dacre had been called upon to breakfast without the fair fresh face of his spouse near him at table, and an expression of disappointment came into his gray eyes.