She changed the subject abruptly.
“The last I heard of you,” she said, “was that you were in China. You were planning great things there. In ten years, I was told, Europe was to be at your mercy!”
“I left Pekin five years ago,” he said. “China is a land of Cabals. She may yet be the greatest country in the world. I, for one, believe in her destiny, but it will be in the generations to come. I have no patience to labour for another to reap the harvest. Then, too, a craving for just one draught of civilisation brought me westward again. Mongolian habits are interesting but a little trying.”
“And what,” she asked, looking at him steadily, “has brought you to Deringham, of all places upon this earth?”
He smiled, and with his stick traced a quaint pattern in the sand.
“I have never told you anything that was not the truth,” he said; “I will not begin now. I might have told you that I was here by chance, for change of air, or for the golf. Neither of these things would have been true. I am here because Deringham village is only a mile or two from Deringham Hall.”
She drew a little closer to him. The jingling of harness, as her horses tossed their heads impatiently, reminded her of the close proximity of the servants.
“What do you want of me?” she asked hoarsely.
He looked at her in mild reproach, a good-humoured smile at the corner of his lips; yet after all was it good humour or some curious outward reflection of the working of his secret thoughts? When he spoke the reproach, at any rate, was manifest.
“Want of you! You talk as though I were a blackmailer, or something equally obnoxious. Is that quite fair, Constance?”