It seemed to him very probable that Nancy would be with her aunt, to confront him. If so,—if indeed she were going to act like any coarse woman, with no regard but for her own passions and Interests,—he would at least have the consolation of expelling from his mind, at once and for ever, her haunting image.
Mrs. Damerel, who during the past twelve months had changed her abode half-a-dozen times, now occupied private lodgings in Tyburnia. On his admittance, Tarrant sat alone for nearly five minutes in a pretentiously furnished room—just the room in which he had expected to find Nancy’s relative; the delay and the surroundings exasperated his nervous mood, so that, when the lady entered, he behaved with slighter courtesy than became his breeding. Nothing in her appearance surprised or interested him. There was a distant facial resemblance to Nancy, natural in her mother’s sister; there was expensive, though not particularly tasteful dress, and a gait, a manner, distinguishable readily enough from what they aimed at displaying—the grace of a woman born to social privilege.
It would be a humiliating conversation; Tarrant braced himself to go through with it. He stood stiffly while his hostess regarded him with shrewd eyes. She had merely bent her head.
‘Will you sit down, Mr. Tarrant?’
He took a chair without speaking.
‘I think you know me by name?’
‘I have heard of a Mrs. Damerel.’
‘Some time ago, I suppose? And in that you have the advantage of me. I heard your name yesterday for the first time.’
It was the sharp rejoinder of a woman of the world. Tarrant began to perceive that he had to do with intelligence, and would not be allowed to perform his share of the talking de haut en bas.
‘In what can I be of service to you?’ he asked with constrained civility.