Ailsa Grenville smiled at him archly when he told her. "Why do you run away when, for once in a way, you have the chance of a little companionship? It would do you more good to stay."
"I think not; and besides," he added, hastily, "I am going on business."
"A convenient sort of business, I fancy. Why not wait and see them first?"
"Well, I could hardly go away immediately after their arrival, when Mr. Pym probably knows of the letter despatched to me from headquarters. It is far simpler to send a runner back with excuses."
"But why go at all?" in a persuasive voice.
Carew walked to the door and knocked the ashes out of his pipe against the heel of his boot; and Ailsa knew by his face that, though he did not resent her questioning, he would take no notice of it. And it made her a little sad, for of all the men she knew, next to Billy, her husband, she admired Carew, and she regretted deeply his insistent determination to stand aloof from mankind generally behind the barriers he had built up.
Then Billy himself came in: khaki-clad, vigorous, and gay as ever; and when he heard the news he was less reticent, and exclaimed outright, "But what do you want to go away for? Why, it will be quite a treat for you to have ladies there; and who knows, one of the heiresses may be very charming—charming enough even for your fastidious taste!"
"I prefer the company of the veldt," was all he said, without relaxing the fixity of his face; "ladies are more in Stanley's line."
"The Kid must be awfully pleased," Ailsa said, smiling. "I'm sure he isn't going away."
Carew, lying back in a big chair, was leisurely lighting his pipe, and he did not reply. All his attitude showed only cold indifference, and it would have been difficult to believe that, even in his heart, he had taken the trouble to be resentful. Ailsa, watching, felt a little impatient with him. She wanted to break through the shell in which he chose to hide that self which her instinct told her was so different to his outward seeming. What had become of the gay Londoner, who drove the smartest four-in-hand in the park, and rode the fastest horse to hounds? She longed to write home and ask her people of his story, but bitter things had been said when she elected to go into exile with her husband, and there had been almost no correspondence since. And Billy had been away in South Africa at the time of the crash and heard nothing about it. All he could tell her was that Carew of the Blues had been known as one of the gayest of the gay fifteen years or so ago, and that suddenly he had seemed to vanish off the face of the earth; and that Carew of the B.S.A.P. was the same man, only different, and he must be over forty years of age. So she had to content herself as well as she could, and be glad that, at any rate, while he remained in the Victoria district, they could have his companionship, though he chose to keep his own counsel as to why he was there.