“I am going to surprise her,” he corrected.
There was a short silence. I had no more doubt in my mind. Chance had brought me face to face with the writer of that letter to my father, the man to find whom he was even now in London. Perhaps they had already met; I stole a glance at him; he was furtively watching me all the while.
“I have also,” he said, “a sister of whom I am very fond. She lives in Paris. I have written to her to come to me—not here, of course, to London.”
I turned a little in my chair and faced him.
“I wonder,” I said, “if amongst those friends of whom you speak there is any one whom I know.”
His lips parted, and he showed all his glistening white teeth.
“Somehow,” he said, softly, under his breath, “I thought you knew. Has your father sent you here? Have you any message for me? If so, let me have it, we may be disturbed.”
I shook my head.
“My father is in London,” I told him. “He left the morning he had your letter.”