Apparently, though he had only arrived in England two or three days ago, he had still more than two or three friends here, and for half an hour after she had seen him first he was occupied with hand-shakes and recognitions. Then, after her stall, which had been so besieged by purchasers, was bare, he passed and caught her eye.
“Ah, Lady Thurso,” he said, in that accurate foreign accent which she found now that she remembered so well, “a thousand greetings! I tried to get near your stall, but it was impossible. And I never waste time over the impossible. But now you have nothing that I can buy, so I, as a purchaser, am impossible too.”
“Yes, I have sold everything,” she said. “You are too late.”
She, who was generally so apt of speech, so quick to take up a point, or drop it for another, felt suddenly tongue-tied. She could think of nothing more to say, though, indeed, as she thought impatiently to herself, it was his turn. She had spoken last. For, as she stood there looking at him, finding him so utterly unchanged, in one moment twelve years had been softly sponged off her life, and some thrill, some nameless bitter-sweet agitation, flickered through her. She was no stranger to that feeling; she had felt it before. But for the moment, infinitesimal in duration, it tied her tongue. It was like some tune that we have heard in childhood, and suddenly hear again, so that we must pause and say to ourselves, “What is that?”
Then she partly recovered herself. If he would not speak, she must.
“Being late is almost a crime in a diplomatist,” she said. “You should always be a little earlier than other people.”
Then she pulled herself together, determining on her attitude towards him, and smiled.
“And your Excellency is going to honour my little dance this evening, are you not?” she said.
A faint smile answered hers, quivering for a moment on his clean-shaven mouth and being reflected in his dark eyes. “Your Excellency” was a delicious phrase, considering the last phrase before to-day that he had heard from that mouth. She—a woman’s privilege—had made a map, so to speak, of their future relations, colouring its boundaries as suited her. It amused him to pretend that he recognised the validity of them.
“I have already accepted your ladyship’s very kind invitation,” he said.