She did not say in return, “Do you know me, then?” or any other conventional thing. The hope in me that she had remembered well enough to guess who I was, brightened. She would not have answered a person she regarded as a stranger, as she answered me,
“There's a card-room at the end of the corridor to the left, off the big hall, where we might rest for a moment or two,” she said. “But I mustn't stop long.”
“No,” I promised. “I won't try to keep you. I ask only a few moments. I can't tell how I thank you for giving me those.”
I threw a glance round for Carmona, and saw him dancing with a stately Mary Stuart. I guessed his partner to be Lady Vale-Avon; and if I were right, it was a bad omen. She was not a woman to care for extraneous dancing, therefore she favoured Carmona in particular.
Still, for the moment he was occupied; and when his back was [pg 20]turned I whisked Lady Monica out of the ball-room, past the decorated staircase in the square hall, and to the room at the end of the corridor. There I pushed aside a portière and followed her in.
She had been right; the room was unoccupied, though two or three bridge tables were ready for players. In one corner was a small sofa. The girl sat down, carefully leaving no place for me, even had I presumed; and, leaning forward, clasped her little hands nervously round her knees.
Then she looked up at me through her mask; and I did not keep her waiting.
“I've no invitation to-night,” I said. “But I had to come. I came to see you. Do you forgive me for saying this?”
“I—think so,” she answered.
“You would be sure, if you knew all.”