“Jean,” she called to her maid, as she passed through the little hall, “Will you open the door for this gentleman?”
In her own room, she slid down into a large cushioned chair and sobbed her heart out.
CHAPTER XXX
It was there Hal found her. By the merest chance she had run up to the flat at her midday hour, to ask a question about Sir Edwin Crathie, and a rumour concerning him that she felt an imperative need to have answered. When she saw Lorraine in tears the question was instantly banished for the moment.
Had Lorraine been in her normal condition, she could hardly have failed to notice that the “Hal” who came up in haste to ask this urgent question was not the “Hal” of a few months, a few weeks ago. She would probably have observed that the vague, indefinable change Alymer had seen in her had grown more marked and more defined.
She seemed to have sprung suddenly into womanhood.
It was no light-hearted, careless, rather boisterous girl who appeared unexpectedly at the flat, to give her one or two eager hugs, tell her the latest news of her doings in gay, gossipy fashion, and eat an unconscionable amount of chocolates, usually kept for her special delectation.
The old, bright look was there on the surface, the ready, laughing speech, but there was also, with it, something that approached a dignified phase, and suggested a new reserve. She was also distinctly better-looking likewise, in some vague, incomprehensible way.
But Lorraine had not time to take any note of the change, for all her faculties were bent upon shielding herself.
Of course it was useless to hide that she had been crying, but at least Hal must not know that the crying had been soul-racking sobs.