[CHAPTER VIII.]
AN UNEXPECTED GUEST.
Gradually the whirling ceased, the singing left her ears. Leigh raised his hat and Maida bowed in return. His eyes lingered on her a moment, and then he turned and disappeared.
“A friend of mine, Mr. Leigh, is down there,” the girl announced. Her husband looked over the rail. “He’s gone,” she added. “I fancy he is coming up here.”
“Who’s coming?” Blydenburg inquired, for he had caught the words.
“A friend of my wife’s,” Mr. Incoul answered. “A man named Leigh—do you know him?”
“Mrs. Manhattan’s brother, isn’t he? No, I don’t know him, but Milly does, I think. Don’t you, Milly?”
Milly waved her head vaguely. She indeed knew the young man in question, but she was not over-confident that he had ever been more than transiently aware of her maidenly existence. She had, however, no opportunity to formulate her uncertainty in words. There was a rap on the door and Leigh entered.
Mr. Incoul rose as becomes a host. The young man bowed collectively to him and the Blydenburgs. He touched Maida’s hand and found a seat behind her. A bull-fight differs from an opera in many things, but particularly in this, that there may be exclamations, but there is no attempt at continuous conversation. Lenox Leigh, though not one to whom custom is law, said little during the rest of the performance. Now and then he bent forward to Maida, but whatever he may have said his remarks were fragmentary and casual. This much Miss Blydenburg noticed, and she noticed also that Maida appeared more interested in her glove than in the spectacle in the ring.