I leaned back in my chair and a day-dream rose up before me.
“What is your sister like now, Cis?” I asked suddenly.
“Trixie! Oh, she’s turned out pretty well, I think!” he answered complacently. “What friends you two used to be, by the by!”
We said no more about the matter then, but on the following morning I received two letters, one from Lady Silchester and the other from Lord Langerdale, both urging me to pay at least a short visit to London and perform social duties, which naturally seemed of more importance to them than to me. I read them through carefully and made up my mind at once. But Lord Langerdale’s letter had stirred up some old memories, and I did not tell Cecil my decision immediately.
“You are about town a good deal, Cecil. Do you ever see anything of Leonard de Cartienne?” I asked.
Cecil shook his head.
“No, nor am I ever likely to,” he answered. “I have heard of him, though, by a strange fluke.”
“What is he doing?”
“Got a commission in the Turkish army. Queer thing I heard the other day from a man I used to know very well once. He’s secretary at the Embassy now at Constantinople, and he asked me whether I ever came across him. Seems he isn’t particularly popular out there.”
“He’s a bad lot,” I remarked.