She threw a glance at him over her gleaming white shoulder.
“He looks like an artist,” she said. “I liked his picture—a French landscape, was it not? And his portrait of the Countess of Davenport was magnificent.”
“If you would care to know him,” Wolfenden said, “I should be very happy to present him to you.”
Mr. Sabin looked up and shook his head quickly, but firmly.
“You must excuse us,” he said. “My niece and I are not in England for very long, and we have reasons for avoiding new acquaintances as much as possible.”
A shade passed across the girl’s face. Wolfenden would have given much to have known into what worlds those clear, soft eyes, suddenly set in a far away gaze, were wandering—what those regrets were which had floated up so suddenly before her. Was she too as impenetrable as the man, or would he some day share with her what there was of sorrow or of mystery in her young life? His heart beat with unaccustomed quickness at the thought. Mr. Sabin’s last remark, the uncertainty of his own position with regard to these people, filled him with sudden fear; it might be that he too was to be included in the sentence which had just been pronounced. He looked up from the table to find Mr. Sabin’s cold, steely eyes fixed upon him, and acting upon a sudden impulse he spoke what was nearest to his heart.
“I hope,” he said, “that the few acquaintances whom fate does bring you are not to suffer for the same reason.”
Mr. Sabin smiled and poured himself out a glass of wine.
“You are very good,” he said. “I presume that you refer to yourself. We shall always be glad that we met you, shall we not, Helène? But I doubt very much if, after to-night, we shall meet again in England at all.”
To Wolfenden the light seemed suddenly to have gone out, and the soft, low music to have become a wailing dirge. He retained some command of his features only by a tremendous effort. Even then he felt that he had become pale, and that his voice betrayed something of the emotion that he felt.