Grant was chuckling to himself as one well pleased. In Courteney's eyes he looked stouter, more prosperous, more keenly business-like, than when he had spoken with him a few nights previously. He took Courteney by the arm and led him through a door at the side.
"Let 'em yell 'emselves hoarse for a bit!" he said. "Do 'em good. Guess my 'rose of the world' isn't going to be too cheap a commodity.... Which reminds me, sir. You've cost me a thousand English pounds by coming here to-night."
"Indeed?" Courteney spoke stiffly. He felt stiff, physically stiff, as one forcibly awakened from a deep slumber.
The man beside him was still chuckling. "Yes. The little witch! Said she'd manage it somehow when I told her you weren't taking any. We had a thousand on it, and the little devil has won, outwitted us both. How in thunder did she do it? Laid a trap for you; what?"
Courteney did not answer. The stiffness was spreading. He felt as one turned to stone. Mechanically he yielded to the hand upon his arm, not speaking, scarcely thinking.
And then—almost before he knew it—he was in her presence, face to face with the golden vision that had caught and—for a space at least—had held his heart.
He bowed, still silent, still strangely bound and fettered by the compelling force.
A hand that was lithe and slender and oddly boyish came out to him. A voice that had in it sweet, lilting notes, like the voice of a laughing child, spoke his name.
"Mr. Courteney! How kind!" it said.
As from a distance he heard Grant speak. "Mr. Courteney, allow me to introduce you—my wife!"