"Oh, perhaps," Maud said; and she hoped he did not note her sudden start or the quick flushing of her face. "When did you see him?"
"He came up the garden way this evening just before I went riding with Jake. You were out with Dr. Capper. He was in rather a decent mood," said Bunny. "He gave me half a sovereign. Not a bad sort--Charlie."
He began to emerge from the enveloping towel, and Maud turned to go.
"You can stay if you like," said Bunny graciously. "I've no wish to make a stranger of you."
But she smiled and declined the invitation. "You do better without me now," she said.
And as the boy's small thin figure slipped down into the bath, she went out and crossed the passage swiftly to his room.
The letter from Charlie was not on his table, but tossed carelessly on the bed with his clothes. She shivered at the thought that Jake, and not she, might have found it there. The purple crest stood out conspicuous on the white envelope--a fox's head with the motto: Sans vertu, underneath. She wondered what wild ancestor of his had designed the cynical device.
Her hands were trembling as she tore open the flap. She was impatient, yet half-afraid. Her heart throbbed hard at sight of the dashing scrawl once so familiar and so dear.
"Ma belle reine des roses;"--her heart throbbed a little faster. The old sweet name, how it brought back to her those free, happy days of her youth! How she marvelled now at the high, girlish pride that had sent him away. How cruel had been the cost of that same pride!
She read on. It was a characteristic epistle, half-mocking, half-tender, throughout. Would she meet him again? But of course she would! Had she not said that he could serve her? But they would not risk another interruption. Would she be going to the Graydown races? If not, he would manage to return early and come to her by the garden way. They would thus be sure of at least half an hour together before anyone else got back. He seemed confident that she would not refuse, and she knew, even as she read, that she could not. She must see him somehow. She must somehow get back to normal relations with him. She could not sacrifice his friendship to that one night's madness. Besides, there was her mother.