The friend expressed his sincere commiseration, but Melville only laughed.
"It's a very little flaw in an otherwise perfect day. You must lunch with me next time, and I will give you your revenge at billiards," and carefully choosing a well-appointed hansom he drove away.
The Vale, South Kensington, is a little-known cul-de-sac lying just off the Fulham Road. It contains but half-a-dozen houses, with trim lawns in front and quite large gardens in the rear; great elms shade the houses, and the remoteness from the main road makes them very quiet; in all of them are French windows and small verandahs, and there is an air of quietude and refinement about the place that makes it very attractive.
"The old lady does herself pretty well," thought Melville to himself as he walked up the gravelled path and noticed the close-cropped lawn and the blaze of geraniums and petunias. "I wonder what she knows about me, and what line I'd better take! The interesting musician might be diplomatic perhaps."
He thought that the maid who opened the door looked curiously at him as he enquired whether Lady Holt was at home, but, after all, that was a trifling matter, capable of bearing many interpretations. His interest was, however, more fully aroused by the drawing-room into which he was shown to await his aunt's coming, for it was not at all the sort of environment in which he had imagined he would find Sir Geoffrey's wife. It was essentially the drawing-room of a worldly woman of the world, furnished with taste, but evidently at great cost; photographs and silver boxes, enamels and ivories were scattered in profusion over the many tables, water colours by rising artists covered the walls, cushions and flowers were everywhere.
"I shall have to readjust my preconceived notions of my elderly relative," he said to himself as he took a rapid survey of the pretty room; "this is a veritable canary's cage."
Then the door opened, and at the rustle of silk petticoats he turned to make a formal bow to his aunt. But as he turned, an exclamation of surprise escaped his lips and his single eye-glass dropped upon the floor, for the woman who entered was no precise and ringletted old lady, but the one who had asked him for his card at Monte Carlo, and who had expressed such sympathy with him when he was reduced to the necessity of applying for the viaticum. It was indeed no other than the charming Mrs. Sinclair.
She came forward with perfect self-possession, but a gleam of amusement lurked in her eyes.
"This is really a most astonishing experience," Melville said, as he bowed over her hand. "You are quite the last person I expected to see."
"Not the last you wanted to see, I hope," she replied, "but I confess delight is not the predominant expression upon your face at the moment. Won't you sit down?"