The door was opened and closed. Then he was ushered in, our little maid servant announcing him with a certain amount of unnecessary emphasis. She withdrew at once, and we were alone together. As he touched my hand I noticed that he was wearing a new suit of riding clothes, which became him very well, and a big bunch of violets in his buttonhole.
“So I have found you at last, have I?” he said, standing over me as though he feared I might even now try to escape. “Was it by your maid’s mistake that I was allowed to come in this afternoon?”
“No,” I answered; “I told her only a minute ago to show you in. I wanted to see you.”
“You are extremely kind,” he remarked, with a note of irony in his tone. “My patience was very nearly exhausted. I was beginning to wonder whether I should ever see you again.”
“It was becoming just a question whether you would,” I remarked. “We are closing the house up next week, I believe, and removing our ‘Penates’ to Eastminster. Alice is busy packing already, and so ought I to be.”
“If that is a hint to me,” he remarked, “I decline to take any notice of it. I have something to say to you. I have had to wait long enough for the opportunity.”
“A little more than a week,” I murmured.
“Never mind how long,” he declared. “It has seemed like a year. Tell me—are you glad that you are going away?”
“I am very glad,” I admitted. “I am glad that we are all going away. In any case I should not have stayed. Perhaps you have heard that I am going to London with Mrs. Fortress?”
Evidently he had not heard. He looked at me in amazement.