"You can show him up," her mistress replied a little wearily.
Immelan entered, a few moments later, spruce and neat in a well-fitting grey suit, and carrying a grey Homburg hat. He was redolent of soaps and perfumes. His step was buoyant, almost jaunty, yet in his blue eyes, as he bent over the hand of the woman upon whom he had come to call, lurked something of the disquietude which, notwithstanding his most strenuous efforts, was beginning to assert itself.
"You make me very happy, my dear Naida," he began, "that you receive me thus so informally. Your good father is smoking in the lounge. He bade me come up."
She beckoned him to a seat.
"A thousand thanks for your flowers, my friend," she said. "Now tell me why you are possessed to see me at this untimely hour. I always rest for a time after luncheon, and I am only here because the sunshine filled my room and made me restless."
"There is a little matter of news," he announced slowly. "I thought it might interest you. I hoped it would."
She turned her head and looked at him.
"News?" she repeated. "News from you means only one thing. Is it good or bad?"
"It is good," he replied, "because it saves me a long and tedious journey, because it saves me also from a separation which I should have found detestable."
"Your journey to China, then, is abandoned?"