“Tell him I knew her,” she answered, “Margery—Margery!”
“Margery,” Baird said slowly, as if the sound touched him. “What a pretty, simple name!”
“She was a pretty, simple creature,” said Miss Amory.
“Tell me—” he said, “tell me something more about her.”
“There is nothing more to tell,” she replied. “She was dying when I met her. I saw it—in her eyes. She could not have lived. She went away and died. She—I——”
John Baird heard a slight sharp choking sound in her throat.
“There!” she said presently, “I don’t like to talk about it. I am too emotional for my years. Go to Mrs. Stornaway. She is looking for you.”
He got up and turned and left her without speaking, and a few minutes later, when Mrs. Stornaway wanted him to give an account of his interview with the Pope, she was surprised to see him approaching her from the door as if he had been out of the room.
His story of the interview with the Pope was very interesting, and he was more “brilliant” than ever during the remainder of the evening, but when the last guest had departed, followed by Mrs. Stornaway to the threshold, that lady, on her return to the parlour, found him standing by the mantel looking at the fire with so profoundly wearied an air, that she uttered an exclamation.
“Why,” she said, “you look tired, I must say. But everything went off splendidly and I never saw you so brilliant.”