He looked at her intently.
“Miss Pellissier,” he said, “I don’t understand this change in you. Every word you utter puzzles me. I have an idea that you are in some sort of trouble. Won’t you let me—can’t I be of any assistance?”
He was obviously in earnest. His tone was kind and sympathetic.
“You are very good,” she said. “Indeed I shall not forget your offer. But just now there is nothing which you or anybody can do. Good-bye.”
He was dismissed, and he understood it. Anna crossed the street, and letting herself in at No. 13 with a latchkey went humming lightly up to her room. She was in excellent spirits, and it was not until she had taken off her hat, and was considering the question of dinner or no dinner, that she remembered that another day had passed, and she was not a whit nearer being able to pay her to-morrow’s bill.
Chapter XI
THE PUZZLEMENT OF NIGEL ENNISON
Nigel Ennison walked towards his club the most puzzled man in London. There could not, he decided, possibly be two girls so much alike. Besides, she had admitted her identity. And yet—he thought of the supper party where he had met Annabel Pellissier, the stories about her, his own few minutes’ whispered love-making! He was a self-contained young man, but his cheeks grew hot at the thought of the things which it had seemed quite natural to say to her then, but which he knew very well would have been instantly resented by the girl whom he had just left. He went over her features one by one in his mind. They were the same. He could not doubt it. There was the same airy grace of movement, the same deep brown hair and alabaster skin. He found himself thinking up all the psychology which he had ever read. Was this the result of some strange experiment? It was the person of Annabel Pellissier—the soul of a very different order of being.