"Frederick, tell Miss Goodchild to come down at once. I have only a minute to stay. Make haste!"
The imperturbable English menial actually ran.
Grace rushed down in alarm. Frederick's incoherent words had made her fear it was a message from her dressmaker telling why it was absolutely impossible to have it ready in time as promised under oath.
She petrified herself when she beheld the man who had made her famous. She did this in order not to betray her glad relief.
"Oh!"
"Grace!" exclaimed H. R., fervently. He quickly approached her, took her hand and led her into her own drawing-room. He then waved his disengaged left at all the chairs with an air that said, "I give all this magnificence to you!" He waved again and commanded, "Sit down!"
She obeyed, but he did not let go her right hand. He sat beside her. Just as she was about to pull it away indignantly he patted it twice very kindly and himself laid it on her own lap.
Her anger was on the very brink of turning itself into oratory when he stood up, squarely before her, clenched his fists in order to hold himself in a vanadium-steel clutch, and whispered, huskily:
"Merciful Heaven, but you're beautiful!"
The vocal storm, checked for an instant by his extraordinary exhibition of self-control, gave him time to go on: "Don't look at me! Don't you know how beautiful you are? It isn't fair!"