Hamel shook his head.
“I have no plans,” he declared. “I have been fortunate enough, or shall I some day say unfortunate enough, I wonder, to have inherited a large legacy.”
Mr. Fentolin smiled.
“Don’t ever doubt your good fortune,” he said earnestly. “The longer I live—and in my limited way I do see a good deal of life—the more I appreciate the fact that there isn’t anything in this world that compares with the power of money. I distrust a poor man. He may mean to be honest, but he is at all times subject to temptation. Ah! here is my niece.”
Mr. Fentolin turned towards the door. Hamel rose at once to his feet. His surmise, then, had been correct. She was coming towards them very quietly. In her soft grey dinner-gown, her brown hair smoothly brushed back, a pearl necklace around her long, delicate neck, she seemed to him a very exquisite embodiment of those memories which he had been carrying about throughout the afternoon.
“Here, Mr. Hamel,” his host said, “is a member of my family who has been a deserter for a short time. This is Mr. Richard Hamel, Esther; my niece, Miss Esther Fentolin.”
She held out her hand with the faintest possible smile, which might have been of greeting or recognition.
“I travelled for some distance in the train with Mr. Hamel this afternoon, I think,” she remarked.
“Indeed?” Mr. Fentolin exclaimed. “Dear me, that is very interesting—very interesting, indeed! Mr. Hamel, I am sure, did not tell you of his destination?”
He watched them keenly. Hamel, though he scarcely understood, was quick to appreciate the possible significance of that tentative question.