"Forgive me. I followed you," he began. Then he saw Harry. "I—ha—ha—I've been hunting for you, Cressy, all the evening!"
"Forgive me, I followed you."
Harry accepted the statement with a cynical smile. It was too evidently not for him Kerr had been hunting, and after the first stammer of embarrassment, the Englishman made no attempt to conceal his real intentions. His words merely served him as an excuse not to retreat.
"This is a good place to sit," he said, pushing forward a chair for Flora. She sank into it, wondering weakly what daring or what danger had brought him into a house where he was not known, to seek her. He sat down in the compartment of a double settee near her. Harry still stood with a dubious smile on his face. The look the two men exchanged appeared to her a prolongment of their earnest interrogation in the picture gallery; but this time it struck her that both carried it off less well. Harry, especially, bore it badly.
"Did you say you were looking for me?" he remarked. "Well, Buller's been looking for you. He wants to know about some Englishman that they're trying to put up at the club."
"How's that? Oh, yes! I remember." Kerr shrugged. "Never heard of him at home, and can't vouch for every fellow who comes along, just because he is English."
"Quite so!" said Harry, with a straight look at Kerr that made Flora uncomfortable.
"But Judge Buller has already vouched for that man," she said quickly, "so he must be all right."