Mrs. Davenport was announced, and remarked that it was a beautiful morning, and Lord Hayes assented. She had seldom seen him before, and he was dressed with extreme care, but appeared wholly insignificant. She remembered his enormous wealth, and it seemed to her to be a sort of label to prevent his getting quite lost in this large world. He reminded her of an undelivered parcel, waiting for its owner to turn up.
Lady Hayes sat silent for a few minutes, and then turned to her husband.
"Perhaps you would be so good as to go away," she said in a low, musical voice, "as I have things to talk over with my friend, or, if you like, we will go upstairs. Perhaps that would be better."
Lord Hayes got up with alacrity.
"The fact is," he said, "I was on the point of going. I have some business to do. I was wanting to talk to you some time later on, if it would be convenient."
"Certainly," said Eva. "I will see you about it later."
She dropped her eyes as he addressed her, and sat looking at the ground till he had left the room. Then she said to Mrs. Davenport,—
"What do you want with me?"
Her tone belied the curtness of her words, and she waited eagerly for the answer. These few moments after she had said she would see Mrs. Davenport, were spent in an agony to control herself. She was hungering for more news from Reggie, but in her hand she held a note, which had come from him by the early post, which made her decision doubly difficult. It was a wild, absurd production, imploring pardon, entreating her to let him know that she had forgiven him—only half coherent—and Eva knew that he had really made his choice, or was willing to make his choice between her and Gertrude, if she would only say "Come." "I am going to Aix to-day," the note finished, "to see Gertrude. Cannot you send me one word, to say you forgive me? I behaved quite unpardonably."
Mrs. Davenport raised her eyes to Eva's face, and answered her bravely.