"So that's why my letters to him weren't returned, and that's why he didn't write! He's gone farther than far with a vengeance." He clenched his fists and frowned savagely at his crippled leg. "I felt so sure of her—and to have to compete with my own valet!"
CHAPTER THE SECOND
RETRIEVERS OF YOUTH
I
The taxi had scarcely drawn up before a small, prim house in Brompton Square when the door was opened by a neat maid in immaculate cap and apron. She was so neat and respectful as to appear almost passionless. She had the high complexion of a Country girl, good gray eyes, a slim, attractive figure and dark, wavy hair which escaped rebelliously from beneath her cap. One wondered how she looked in her off-duty moments, when she wasn't saying, "Yes, your Lordship" and "No, your Lordship." Tabs mustered a smile and called to her, "Thank you, Ann. I'll be with you in a moment."
As he paid the fare, he let his eyes wander. The outside of the house had been painted white, evidently in honor of his home-coming. The work had been only recently completed, for the chalked warning on the pavement was not yet obliterated, "Wet Paint Beware." He had given no orders; it was Ann's doing—her accustomed, tactful thoughtfulness. The steps were speckless as a newly laundered shirt, the brasses polished to the brilliancy of precious metal. His window-boxes—— He glanced
along the fronts of his neighbors' houses; they hadn't put theirs out yet. His were ahead of everybody's; they made a cheerful splash of red, with their soldierly upstanding tulips, above the long serried line of area-railings. Again Ann's doing! And the snow-white curtains behind each row of panes were also Ann's.
The driver clicked his "For Hire" sign into the upright position and chugged away to join the flow of traffic which thumped orchestrally past the end of the Square. Tabs climbed the three low steps separately; he had been used to take them at a bound. He tried to climb them slowly as though from choice, and not from necessity. He was very conscious that Ann was watching. As she closed the door behind him he said, "So you knew I was coming? You received my telegram?"