“What do you mean?”
“I mean that a way may be found to induce a certain gentleman to return to his native country and stay there,” Deyes said smoothly. “After dinner we are going to have some talk. Please oblige me now by abandoning the discussion and eating something. Ah! that champagne will do you good.”
Her neighbour on the other side addressed her, and Wilhelmina was conscious of a sudden lightening of the load upon her heart. Like every one else, she had confidence in this tall, self-contained man whose life was somewhat of a mystery even to his friends, and who had about him that suggestion of power which reticence nearly always brings. He was going to help her. She pushed all those miserable thoughts away from her. She became herself again.
“Let no one imagine,” Lady Peggy said, carefully knocking the end of a cigarette upon the table, “that I am going to try to catch the eyes of all you women, and go sailing away with my nose in the air to look at engravings in the drawing-room. You can just get up and go when you like, any or all of you. There are bridge tables laid out for you in the library, music and a hopping girl—I don’t call it dancing—in the drawing-room, a pool in the billiard-room, or flirtation in the winter-garden. Coffee and liqueurs will follow you wherever you go. Take your choice, good people. For myself, the Duke is telling me stories of Cairo. J’y suis, j’y reste. I’m only thankful no one else can hear them!”
The party at the great round table dispersed slowly by two and threes. Wilhelmina and Deyes strolled into the winter-garden. Deyes lit a cigarette and stood with his hands behind him. Wilhelmina was leaning against the back of a chair. She was too excited to sit down.
“Please!” she begged.
Deyes threw his cigarette away. His face seemed to harden and soften at the same time. His mouth was suddenly firm, but his eyes glowed. All the boredom was gone from his manner and expression.
“Wilhelmina,” he said, “I have wanted to marry you ever since I saw you in the Café de Paris with that atrocious blackguard who has caused you so much suffering. You may remember that I have hinted as much to you before!”
She was startled—visibly disturbed.