'Very good, sir. I'll do what I can, sir,' said the excellent man, as Mr. Van Torp pointed to the things that lay about.
As he went out, he recognised the voice of his neighbour, who was talking excitedly in voluble German, somewhere at the back of the house.
'He's complaining now,' thought Mr. Van Torp, with something like a smile.
He had already been to the best hotel, in the hope of obtaining rooms, and he had no difficulty in finding it again. He asked for Madame da Cordova. She was at [{135}] home, for it was an off-day; he sent in his card, and was presently led to her sitting-room. Times had changed. Six months earlier he would have been told that there had been a mistake and that she had gone out.
She was alone; a letter she had been writing lay unfinished on the queer little desk near the shaded window, and her pen had fallen across the paper. On the round table in the middle of the small bare room there stood a plain white vase full of corn-flowers and poppies, and Margaret was standing there, rearranging them, or pretending to do so.
She was looking her very best, and as she raised her eyes and greeted him with a friendly smile, Mr. Van Torp thought she had never been so handsome before. It had not yet occurred to him to compare her with Lady Maud, because for some mysterious natural cause the beautiful Englishwoman who was his best friend had never exerted even the slightest feminine influence on his being; he would have carried her in his arms, if need had been, as he had carried the Tartar girl, and not a thrill of his nerves nor one faster beat of his heart would have disturbed his placidity; she knew it, as women know such things, and the knowledge made her quite sure that he was not really the coarse-grained and rather animal son of nature that many people said he was, the sort of man to whom any one good-looking woman is much the same as another, a little more amusing than good food, a little less satisfactory than good wine.
But the handsome singer stirred his blood, the touch of her hand electrified him, and the mere thought [{136}] that any other man should ever make her his own was unbearable. After he had first met her he had pursued her with such pertinacity and such utter ignorance of women's ways that he had frightened her, and she had frankly detested him for a time; but he had learned a lesson and he profited by it with that astounding adaptability which makes American men and women just what they are.
Margaret held out her hand and he took it; and though its touch and her friendly smile were like a taste of heaven just then, he pressed her fingers neither too much nor too little, and his face betrayed no emotion.
'It's very kind of you to receive me, Miss Donne,' he said quietly.
'I think it's very kind of you to come and see me,' Margaret answered. 'Come and sit down and tell me how you got here—and why!'