“Yes. I've got to do something. I can't sit still and think of what's going to happen. I'll be back for luncheon.”
Half an hour later he was in the small bachelor apartment of two college friends, a few blocks farther up-town, and he was doing the thing he did nearly every day of his life in a surreptitious way. He sat at the cheap upright piano in their disordered living-room and, unhampered by the presence of young men who preferred music as it is rendered for the masses, played as if his very soul was in his fingers.
CHAPTER III
The next three or four days passed slowly for those who waited. A spirit of uneasiness pervaded the household. Among the servants, from Jones down, there was dismay. It was not even remotely probable that Mrs Desmond would remain, and they confessed to a certain affection for her, strange as it may appear to those who know the traits of servants who have been well treated by those above them.
Frederic flatly refused to meet the steamer when she docked. As if swayed by his decision, Dawes and Riggs likewise abandoned a plan to greet the returning master and his bride as they came down the gangplank. But for the almost peremptory counsel of Mrs Desmond, Brood's son would have absented himself from the house on the day of their arrival. Jones and a footman went to the pier with the chauffeur.
It was half-past two in the afternoon when the automobile drew up in front of the house and the fur-coated footman nimbly hopped down and threw open the door.
James Brood, a tall, distinguished-looking man of fifty, stepped out of the limousine. For an instant, before turning to assist his wife from the car, he allowed his keen eyes to sweep the windows on the lower floor. In one of them stood his son, holding the lace curtains apart and smiling a welcome that seemed sincere. He waved his hand to the man on the side-walk. Brood responded with a swift, almost perfunctory gesture, and then held out his hand to the woman who was descending.
Frederic's intense gaze was fixed on the stranger who was coming into his life. At a word from Brood she glanced up at the window. The smile still lingered on the young man's lips, but his eyes were charged with an expression of acute wonder. She smiled, but he was scarcely aware of the fact. He watched them cross the side-walk and mount the steps.