She looked at him with a faint smile upon her lips. Yet her eyes were very sad.
“You have heard what my inexorable guardian has said, Lord Wolfenden,” she answered quietly. “I am afraid he is right. We are wanderers, he and I, with no settled home.”
“I shall venture to hope,” he said boldly, “that some day you will make one—in England.”
A tinge of colour flashed into her cheeks. Her eyes danced with amusement at his audacity—then they suddenly dropped, and she caught up the folds of her gown.
“Ah, well,” she said demurely, “that would be too great a happiness. Farewell! One never knows.”
She yielded at last to Mr. Sabin’s cold impatience, and turning away, followed him down the staircase. Wolfenden remained at the top until she had passed out of sight; he lingered even for a moment or two afterwards, inhaling the faint, subtle perfume shaken from her gown—a perfume which reminded him of an orchard of pink and white apple blossoms in Normandy. Then he turned back, and finding Harcutt and Densham lingering over their coffee, sat down beside them.
Harcutt looked at him through half-closed eyes—a little cloud of blue tobacco smoke hung over the table. Densham had eaten little, but smoked continually.
“Well?” he asked laconically.
“After all,” Wolfenden said, “I have not very much to tell you fellows. Mr. Sabin did not call upon me; I met him by chance in Bond Street, and the girl asked me to supper, more I believe in jest than anything. However, of course I took advantage of it, and I have spent the evening since eleven o’clock with them. But as to gaining any definite information as to who or what they are, I must confess I’ve failed altogether. I know no more than I did yesterday.”