CHAPTER XXIII
MR. SABIN EXPLAINS
Mr. Sabin and his niece had finished their dinner, and were lingering a little over an unusually luxurious dessert. Wolfenden had sent some muscatel grapes and peaches from the forcing houses at Deringham Hall—such peaches as Covent Garden could scarcely match, and certainly not excel. Mr. Sabin looked across at Helène as they were placed upon the table, with a significant smile.
“An Englishman,” he remarked, pouring himself out a glass of burgundy and drawing the cigarettes towards him, “never knows when he is beaten. As a national trait it is magnificent, in private life it is a little awkward.”
Helène had been sitting through the meal, still and statuesque in her black dinner gown, a little more pale than usual, and very silent. At Mr. Sabin’s remark she looked up quickly.
“Are you alluding to Lord Wolfenden?” she asked.
Mr. Sabin lit his cigarette, and nodded through the mist of blue smoke.
“To no less a person,” he answered, with a shade of mockery in his tone. “I am beginning to find my guardianship no sinecure after all! Do you know, it never occurred to me, when we concluded our little arrangement, that I might have to exercise my authority against so ardent a suitor. You would have found his lordship hard to get rid of this morning, I am afraid, but for my opportune arrival.”
“By no means,” she answered. “Lord Wolfenden is a gentleman, and he was not more persistent than he had a right to be.”
“Perhaps,” Mr. Sabin remarked, “you would have been better pleased if I had not come?”