“Tell him that I am sorry to hear of his illness, but that I am glad that he is taking care of himself,” he answered, looking down at me. “Tell him that the weather is bad, and that he will do well to take care of himself. He is better in his room just at present.”
We were inside the gates of the Yellow House, and I had not time to ask him the meaning of this unusual solicitude for my father’s health. I was still puzzling over it when we were shown into the drawing room. Then for a moment I forgot it, and everything else altogether. Adelaide Fortress had a visitor sitting opposite to her and talking earnestly.
The conversation ceased suddenly, and she looked up as we entered. There was no mistaking the long, sallow face and anxious eyes. She looked at me with indifference, but at the sight of my companion she jumped up and a little cry broke from her lips. Her eyes seemed to be devouring him.
“At last!” she cried. “At last!”
CHAPTER XV
THE LIKENESS OF PHILIP MALTABAR
We stood looking at them in wonder. Her face had seemed suddenly to light up in some mysterious way, so that for the moment one quite forgot that she was plain at all.
“It is really you!” she murmured. “How wonderful!” She held out both her hands. Bruce Deville took them a little awkwardly. It was easy to see that her joy at this meeting was not altogether reciprocated. But she seemed utterly unconscious of that. There was quite a becoming pink flush on her sallow cheeks, and her dark eyes were wonderfully soft. Her lips were parted with a smile of welcome, and showed all her teeth—she had gleaming white teeth, beautifully shaped and regular.
“To think that we should meet again like this,” she continued, parting with his great brown hand with some evident reluctance.