It was at the end of the third dance when Jane, on the arm of Percy Endicott was on her way to the terrace for a breath of air, that Bibby Worthington slipped a note into her fingers. She excused herself and took it to the nearest electric bulb. She knew the handwriting at once. It was in Nina Jaffray’s picturesque scrawl.
“Jane, dear,” it ran. “I must see you for a moment about something which concerns you intimately. Meet me at twelve by the fountain in the loggia of the tennis court.
“Nina.”
Jane turned the note over and re-read it; then with quick scorn, tore it into tiny pieces and scattered them into the bushes. The impudence of her! She had given Nina credit for better taste. What right had she to intrude again in Jane’s private affairs when she must know how little her offices were appreciated? And yet, what was this she had to say? Something that concerned Jane intimately? What could that be unless——
Coleman Van Duyn appeared and claimed the next dance, which he begged that she would sit out. Jane agreed because it would give her a chance to think. There was little real exertion required in talking to Coley.
What could Nina want to tell her? And where—did she say? In the loggia of the tennis court—at twelve. It must be almost that now.
At five minutes of twelve Nellie Pennington handed Gallatin a note.
“From Nina,” she whispered. “It’s really outrageous, Phil, the way you’re flirting with that trusting child. I’m sure you ought to be ashamed of yourself.”
The tennis court was at the far end of the long house. It was reached by passing first a succession of rooms which made up the main building, into the conservatory, by the swimming-pool and loggia. The loggia was a red-tiled portico, enclosed in glass during the winter, in the center of which was a fountain surrounded by a circular marble bench, all filched from an old Etruscan villa. To-night it was unlighted except by the glow from the bronze Japanese lamps in the conservatory; an ideal spot for a tryst, so far removed from the main body of the house and so cool in winter that it was seldom used except as a promenade or as a haven by those purposely belated. Gallatin, the scrap of paper in his fingers, strolled through the deserted halls, smoking thoughtfully. Nina Jaffray was beginning to grate just a little on his nerves. He had no idea what she wanted of him and he didn’t much care.
He only knew that it was almost time for him to make his meaning clear to her in terms which might not be misunderstood. As he entered the obscurity of the loggia, he saw the head and shoulders of a figure in white above the back of the stone bench.