“How well done of you!” he said. “How well arranged! But I'm afraid you didn't arrange it at all. It has merely happened. Where did you come from?”
“From America; got back yesterday.” T. Tembarom's hand-shake was a robust hearty greeting. “It's all right.”
“From America!” The united voices of the solicitors exclaimed it.
Joseph Hutchinson broke into a huge guffaw, and he stamped in exultation.
“I'm danged if he has na' been to America!” he cried out. “To America!”
“Oh!” Miss Alicia gasped hysterically, “they go backward and forward to America like—like lightning!”
Little Ann had not risen at his entrance, but sat still with her hands clasped tightly on her lap. Her face had somehow the effect of a flower gradually breaking into extraordinary bloom. Their eyes had once met and then she remained, her soul in hers which were upon him, as she drank in every word he uttered. Her time had not yet come.
Lady Joan had remained standing by the chair, which a few moments before her manner had seemed to transform into something like a witness stand in a court of justice. Her hungry eyes had grown hungrier each second, and her breath came and went quickly. The very face she had looked up at on her last talk with T. Tembarom—the oddly human face—turned on her as he came to her. It was just as it had been that night—just as commonly uncommon and believable.
“Say, Lady Joan! You didn't believe all that guff, did you—You didn't?” he said.
“No—no—no! I couldn't!” she cried fiercely.