I looked up, and the words were on my lips to call him back. For the moment I had forgotten Olive Berdenstein and my bargain with her. If he had been looking then it would have been all over. But already his back was vanishing through the door. I moved slowly to the window and watched him walk down the drive with head bent and footsteps less firm than usual. He crossed the road and took the footpath across the park which led up to the Court. In the distance, a weird little figure in her waving cloak gleaming through the faint mist, I could see Olive Berdenstein crossing the common diagonally with the evident intention of intercepting him. I turned away from the window and laughed bitterly.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE EVIDENCE OF CIRCUMSTANCES
Two very weary days dragged themselves by. We had no news whatever from my father. We did not even know where he was. Alice and I were hard at work packing, and already the house began to look bare and comfortless. All the rooms, except two were dismantled. We began to count the days before we might be able to move into Eastminster. No one came to call upon us. I saw nothing whatever either of Olive Berdenstein or of Bruce Deville.
But on the afternoon of the third day I saw them both from the window of my room. They came from the plantation leading down to the Yellow House and turned slowly upwards from the Court. The girl was much more fittingly dressed than usual. She was wearing a dark green tailor-made gown, and even from the distance at which I stood I could see that she was walking briskly, and that there was a new vivacity in her manner and carriage. Her usually sallow cheeks were touched with a faint and very becoming tinge of pink. Bruce Deville too was leaning down towards her with a little more than his usual consideration. I watched them from the window, and there was a pain at my heart like the pain of death. Had she won already, I wondered? Was a man so easily to be deceived?
They had come from the Yellow House; he had been taking her to see Mrs. Fortress. An irresistible desire seized me. I hurried on my jacket and hat and walked down there.
The little maid-servant admitted me without hesitation. Mrs. Fortress was at home, she told me, and would no doubt see me, although she was very busy. Hearing my voice, she came out into the hall to meet me, and led me into her study.
“I am hard at work, you see,” she remarked, pointing to a pile of papers littered all over her desk. “When do you think that you will be able to come into residence with me? I have had my little flat put in order, and I want to get there soon.”
“I can come in about three weeks, I suppose,” I said. “I shall be very glad to. We hope to move to Eastminster on Monday or Tuesday. I want to see my father again and to help them to settle down there. Afterwards I shall be quite free.”