“If you can't make him come, my dear,” the professor said, “I am sure it will be of no use my trying.”
“He has had my letter,” she continued, half to herself; “he has had my letter and he does not come.”
“There is nothing to be done but wait,” her father decided.
“And meanwhile,” she went on, “supposing he were to discover Beatrice, supposing they two were to come together; supposing he were to tell her what he knows and she were to tell him what she guessed!”
The professor buried his face in his hands. Elizabeth threw her cigarette away with an impatient gesture.
“What an idiot I am!” she declared. “What is the use of wasting time like this?”
There was a knock at the door. A trim-looking French maid presented herself. She addressed her mistress in voluble French. A coiffeur and a manicurist were waiting in the next apartment; it was time that Madame habited herself. The professor listened to these announcements with an air of half-admiring wonder.
“I suppose I must be going,” he said, rising to his feet. “There is just one thing I should like to ask you, Elizabeth, if I may, before I go.”
“Well?”
“Who was the young man whom I met here just now?”