"Mr. Otway!"
How altered! The face was much, much older, and in some indeterminable way had lost its finer suggestions. At her best, Olga Hannaford had a distinction of feature, a singularity of emotional expression, which made her beautiful in Olga Florio the lines of visage were far less subtle, and classed her under an inferior type. Transition from maidenhood to what is called the matronly had been too rapid; it was emphasised by her costume, which cried aloud in its excess of modish splendour.
"How glad I am to see you again!" she sighed tremorously, pressing his hand with fervour, gazing at him with furtive directness. "Are you living in England now?"
Piers gave an account of himself. He was a little embarrassed but quite unagitated. A sense of pity averted his eyes after the first wondering look.
"Will you—may I venture—can you spare the time to come and have tea with me? My carriage is waiting—I am quite alone—I only looked in for a few minutes, to rest my mind after a lunch with, oh, such tiresome people!"
His impulse was to refuse, at all costs to refuse. The voice, the glance, the phrases jarred upon him, shocked him. Already he had begun "I am afraid"—when a hurried, vehement whisper broke upon his excuse.
"Don't be unkind to me! I beg you to come! I entreat you!"
"I will come with pleasure," he said in a loud voice of ordinary civility.
At once she turned, and he followed. Without speaking, they descended the great staircase; a brougham drove up; they rolled away westward. Never had Piers felt such thorough moral discomfort; the heavily perfumed air of the carriage depressed and all but nauseated him; the inevitable touch of Olga's garments made him shrink. She had begun to talk, and talked incessantly throughout the homeward drive; not much of herself, or of him, but about the pleasures and excitements of the idle-busy world. It was meant, he supposed, to convey to him an idea of her prosperous and fashionable life. Her husband, she let fall, was for the moment in Italy; affairs of importance sometimes required his presence there; but they both preferred England. The intellectual atmosphere of London—where else could one live on so high a level?
The carriage stopped in a street beyond Edgware Road, at a house of more modest appearance than Otway had looked for. Just as they alighted, a nursemaid with a perambulator was approaching the door; Piers caught sight of a very pale little face shadowed by the hood, but his companion, without heeding, ran up the steps, and knocked violently. They entered.