As for the Lady Henrietta, she would have fainted on the spot. But fortune favoured him—they did not know.
No excitement of the wildest day's hunting had ever made his pulses bound like this! Dmitry had arranged everything. Paul was a young English secretary to Madame, who had much writing to do. And in any case it is not the affair of respectable foreign hotels to pry into their clients' relationship when a large suite has been engaged.
Paul's valet, the son of an old retainer of the family, was an honest fellow, and devoted to his master—but Sir Charles Verdayne had decided to make things doubly sure.
"Tompson," he had said, the morning before they left, "however Mr. Verdayne may amuse himself while you are abroad, your eyes and mouth are shut, remember. No d——d gossip back to the servants here, or in hotels, or houses—and, above all, no details must ever reach her Ladyship. If he gets into any thundering mess let me know—but mum's the word, d'y understand, Tompson?"
"I do, Sir Charles," said Tompson, stolidly.
And he did, as events proved.
The rooms on the Bürgenstock looked so simple, so unlike the sitting-room at Lucerne! Just fresh and clean and primitive. Paul wandered through them, and in the one allotted to himself he came upon Anna—Madame's maid, whom Dmitry had pointed out to him—putting sheets as fine as gossamer on his bed; with the softest down pillows. How dear of his lady to think thus of him!—her secretary.
The tiger—his tiger—had arrived in the sitting-room, and some simple cushions of silk; sweet-peas and spring flowers decorated the vases—there were no tuberoses, or anything hot-house, or forced.
The sun blazed in at the windows, the green trees all washed and fresh from the rain gladdened his eye, and down below, a sapphire lake reflected the snow-capped mountains. What a setting for a love-dream. No wonder Paul trod on air!
The only possible crumpled rose-leaves were some sentences in the lady's reply to his impassioned letter of the morning: