As they spoke, she with her mournful eyes turned on Rainham's sympathetic face, he absently following the movements of the child as it laboriously raised a small edifice of gravel-stones on the seat between them, neither of them noticed the severely correct figure in the frock-coat and immaculate hat who passed close behind with observant eyeglass fixed upon the little group, and with an air which, after the first flush of open-mouthed surprise, was eloquently expressive of regretful indignation and the highest motives.
Charles Sylvester continued his walk for a distance of about fifty paces, and then seated himself in a position to command a view of the persons in whom he was interested.
"I don't like watching Rainham like this," he said to himself; "but it's a duty which I owe to society."
That the man was Rainham was as obvious as that the woman he was talking to was of a far lower rank in life than his own. And then there was the child!
"By Jove!" said Sylvester sententiously, "it's worse than I thought. People really ought to be warned. I suppose it's that girl he was talking about at the studio the other day; and he tried to shift her on to Lightmark. What a hypocrite the man must be!"
He was not, however, for long called upon to maintain, in the interests of society, his position of espionage; for Rainham, warned of the lapse of time by the clock which adorns the Park lodge, presently became aware that, if he was to fulfil his intention of calling on Mrs. Sylvester, he had no time to spare; and when he rose from his seat Charles Sylvester thought it advisable to resume the walk which his zeal had induced him to interrupt.
CHAPTER X
After all, he need not have hurried. Mrs. Sylvester was out, he was told by the butler, who proceeded to suggest, with the freedom of an old friend, that he should make his way upstairs and find Miss Eve.
"Yes, I think I will, Phelps," he said, after a moment's hesitation, "if she is disengaged."
"Miss Eve is in the music-room playing, I think, sir. Will you go up?"