“Thank you. It’s really impossible.” And Roger’s tone and manner were a courteous but final refusal of all that she was implying. “Will you trouble yourself with my adieux to Mr. Richmond and your daughter?”
“I’m so disappointed I hardly know what to say,” cried Mrs. Richmond with pathetic appeal. “Do forgive my rudeness, but——”
“It’s quite impossible for me to change my plans for the little time I have between now and Saturday morning.” Roger was simply polite—not unfriendly, yet certainly not friendly.
Mrs. Richmond’s handsome eyes veiled their anger behind a look of resigned regret. She dared not quarrel with him, must part with him on friendly terms. “I understand. I am dreadfully sorry. But—as you say, there’s Paris. We haven’t your address there, I believe.”
“I have no address,” said Roger. “I shall have to find a place.”
“D’Artois will know,” said Mrs. Richmond hastily, to cover the almost blunt refusal to continue the acquaintance. “We can find out from him.”
“I lead rather a secluded life there,” was Roger’s reply. “One must fight constantly against the temptations to distraction. But I needn’t explain that to the wife of a busy man of affairs.”
“No, indeed,” cried she, with undiminished cordiality—and she did not find it difficult to be cordial to a man whose charm she was now feeling, hardly the less, perhaps the more, because he was defeating her will. “Still,” she went on, “we’ll venture to hope that you’ll relent a little and not look on us altogether as intruders, Mr. Wade.”
“You are too kind, Mrs. Richmond,” said Roger. He made as much of a move toward turning away as politeness permitted.
“Again, I’m sorry—so sorry, about dinner,” said Mrs. Richmond, once more extending her hand. She was all friendliness, all cordiality. “And I’ll hope you and Fate will be kinder in Paris. Good-by. Mr. Richmond will be really distressed. And Beatrice——”