But to his surprise, when he glanced back again, he saw that Gershom had passed the mansion, and was hurrying down the walk which the strange woman had followed a moment before. Stephen could still see her figure approaching a distant gate; and he observed presently that Gershom was not far behind her, and that he appeared to be speaking her name. She started and turned quickly with a movement of alarm; and then, as Gershom joined her, she went on again in the direction she had first taken. A few minutes later their rapidly moving figures left the Square and passed down the street beyond the high iron fence.
"I wonder what it means?" thought Stephen indifferently. "I wonder what the deuce Gershom has got up his sleeve?"
By the time he reached his office the wonder had vanished; but it returned to him on his way home that afternoon when he dropped into the old print shop for a word with Corinna.
"I passed that fellow Gershom in the Square to-day," he said. "Do you know him by sight?"
She shook her head. "What is he like? Patty tells me that he has become a nuisance."
"Ah, then you have seen Patty?"
A smile turned her eyes to the colour of November leaves. "She was here for an hour this morning. I have great hopes of her. I think she is going to supply me with an interest in life."
"Then she still amuses you?"
"Amuses me? My dear, she enchants me. She stands for the suppressed audacities of my past."
He looked at her thoughtfully. "I wonder how much of her is real?"