He stood in front of the fireplace, waiting for Andrews to bring in the post. At that particular moment there wasn't anybody else in the hall. There probably soon would be somebody, Napier reflected, with a mingled sense of amusement and uneasiness. For this was about the time Miss von Schwarzenberg was astute enough to choose for her little tête-à-têtes with the private secretary—always elaborately accidental. Sir William would be out riding; Lady McIntyre dawdling over her late breakfast, and Madge in the schoolroom, as Napier could all too plainly hear, practising with that new ruthlessness introduced by Miss von Schwarzenberg.
Miss Greta was never so at a loss as to enter without her little excuse, "I think I must have left my knitting." Or, sans phrase, she would go to the writing table and consult Whitaker or Bradshaw. There was always a semblance of reasonableness in such preoccupation. For Lady McIntyre had fallen into the habit of going to Miss Greta for every sort of service, from somebody's official style and title to looking out trains.
It wasn't the first, by several score of times, that young ladies had shown themselves fertile in pretexts for a little conversation with Mr. Napier. He himself was not in the least averse, as a rule, to a little harmless flirtation—even with a governess. But suppose this particular young woman should, with the fatal German sentimentality, be really falling in love. One day, as he was sorting the letters, she had stood at the table beside him, durchblattering Bradshaw with piteous aimlessness. He suggested: "Shall I look it up for you.... Where do you want to go?"
With a heave of her high bosom she had answered that sometimes she thought the place she'd best go to was the bottom of Kirklamont Loch. Only the timely entrance of a servant with a telegram had, Napier felt, saved him from a most inconvenient scene. He reflected anxiously upon the high rate of suicide in Germany. It would be very awful if for sake of his beaux yeux Miss Greta should find a watery grave.
He looked at the clock. If the post was late, so was Miss von Schwarzenberg.
Suddenly it came over Napier that she timed these entrances of hers, not according to the clock, and not according to his own movements. He was sometimes twenty minutes waiting there alone for the post to come in.
"God bless my soul!" he ejaculated mentally. Wasn't she invariably here about two minutes before Andrews brought in the bag?
Before Napier had time to readjust himself to this new view of the lady's apparent interest in him—there she was!—in her very feminine, rather Londony, clothes; her intensely white, plump neck rising out of a lace blouse; her yellow hair bound in smooth braids round her head; a light dust of pearl powder over her pink cheeks.
She came straight over to the fireplace, "Mr. Napier, I should like to speak to you a moment."
Napier lowered his newspaper, "Yes, Miss von Schwarzenberg."