Mrs. Rushmore and Kralinsky had stopped in their walk and were waiting for them. They quickened their pace.
'I thought perhaps this was far enough,' said Mrs. Rushmore. 'Of course I could go on further, and it's not your usual walk, my dear, but unless you mind—'
Margaret did not mind, and said so readily; whereupon Mrs. Rushmore deliberately took Van Torp for her companion on the way back.
'I'm sure you won't object to walking slowly,' she said to him, 'and Miss Donne and the Count can go as fast as they like, for they are both good walkers. I am sure you must be a great walker,' she added, turning to the Russian.
He smiled blandly and bent his head a little, as if he were acknowledging a compliment. Van Torp looked at him quietly.
'I should have thought you were more used to riding,' said the American. [{234}]
'Ah, yes!' The indifferent answer came in a peculiarly oily tone, though the pronunciation was perfect. 'I was in the cavalry before I began to travel. But I walked over two thousand miles in Central Asia, and was none the worst for it.'
Margaret was sure that she was not going to like him, as she moved on with him by her side; and Van Torp, walking with Mrs. Rushmore, was quite certain that he was Levi Longlegs, who had herded cattle with him for six months very long ago. [{235}]
CHAPTER IX
Logotheti reached his lodgings in St. James's Place at six o'clock in the evening of the day on which he had promised to dine with Van Torp, and the latter's note of excuse was given to him at once. He read it, looked out of the window, glanced at it again, and threw it into the waste-paper basket without another thought. He did not care in the least about dining with the American millionaire. In fact, he had looked forward to it rather as a bore than a pleasure. He saw on his table, with his letters, a flat and almost square parcel, which the addressed label told him contained the Archæological Report of the Egyptian Exploration Fund, and he had heard that the new number would contain an account of a papyrus recently discovered at Oxyrrhynchus, on which some new fragments of Pindar had been found. No dinner that could be devised, and no company that could be asked to meet him at it, could be half as delightful as that to the man who so deeply loved the ancient literature of his country, and he made up his mind at once that he would not even take the trouble to go to a club, but would have a bird and a salad in his rooms.