“Dear little girl,” he said, “perhaps you are right. I am not altogether honest. I am not in the least like the sort of man who ought to look at you and feel towards you as I have looked and felt during these wonderful days. But all of us have our weak spots, you know. I think that you found mine. Good-bye, little girl!”
She would have called him back, but he had no idea of lending himself to anything so inartistic. With head thrown back, he left the footpath and climbed the hill round which they had been walking. Not once did he look behind. Not once did he turn his head till he stood on the top of the rock-strewn eminence, his figure clearly outlined against the blue sky. Then he straightened himself and turned round, thinking all the time how wonderfully effective his profile must seem in that deep, soft light, if she should have the sense to look.
She did look. She was standing very nearly where he had left her. She was waving her handkerchief, beckoning him to come down. He raised his hand above his head as though in farewell, and turned slowly away. As soon as he was quite sure that he was out of sight, he took his cigarette case from his pocket and began to smoke!
CHAPTER X
THE SCENE CHANGES
Saton left the country on the following afternoon, arrived at St. Pancras soon after five, and drove at once to a large, roomy house on the north side of Regent’s Park. He was admitted by a trim parlormaid—Parkins had been left behind to superintend the removal from Blackbird’s Nest—and he found himself asking his first question with a certain amount of temerity.
“Madame is in?” he inquired.
“Madame is in the drawing-room,” the maid answered.