“I’m glad you are human enough to have phases,” she declared. “I was beginning to be afraid that you might turn out to be just an ordinary superior person. Perhaps you are also human enough to drink tea and eat muffins. Try, won’t you?”
They were in front of her door, which flew immediately open. She either took his consent for granted, or chose not to risk his refusal, for she went on ahead, and his faint protests were unheard. His hat and stick passed into the care of an elderly person in plain black clothes; with scarcely an effort at resistance, he found himself following her down the hall. She stopped before a small wrought-iron gate, which a footman at once threw open.
“It makes one feel as though one were in a hotel, doesn’t it?” she remarked, “but I hate stairs. Besides, I am going to take you a long, long way up.... I am not at home this afternoon, Groves.”
“Very good, madam,” the man answered.
They stepped out into a smaller hall. A dark-featured young woman came hurrying forward to meet them.
“I shall not need you, Annette,” Wilhelmina said. “Go down and see that they send up tea for two, and telephone to Lady Margaret—say I’m sorry that I cannot call for her this afternoon.”
“Parfaitement, madame,” the girl murmured, and hurried away. Wilhelmina opened the door of a sitting-room—the most wonderful apartment Macheson had ever seen. A sudden nervousness seized him. He felt his knees shaking, his heart began to thump, his brain to swim. All at once he realized where he was! It was not the lady of Thorpe, this! It was the woman who had come to him with the storm, the woman who had set burning the flame which had driven him into a new world. He looked around half wildly! He felt suddenly like a trapped animal. It was no place for him, this bower of roses and cushions, and all the voluptuous appurtenances of a chamber subtly and irresistibly feminine! He was bereft of words, awkward, embarrassed. He longed passionately to escape.
Wilhelmina closed the door and raised her veil. She laid her two hands upon his shoulders, and looked up at him with a faint but very tender smile. Her forehead was slightly wrinkled, her fingers seemed to cling to him, so that her very touch was like a caress! His heart began to beat madly. The perfume of her clothes, her hair, the violets at her bosom, were like a new and delicious form of intoxication. The touch of her fingers became more insistent. She was drawing his face down to hers.
“I wonder,” she murmured, “whether you remember!”