Passing West Drayton, she turned round suddenly; and their eyes met again.
“Would you care to look at one of my papers?” asked Peter, tentatively proffering The Tatler.
“Thank you so much,” said the girl. Her voice, low and perfectly accented, betrayed no hint of shyness. “It was nice of you to throw away your cigar. But I don’t mind a bit if you want to light another.”
“Oh, I don’t want to smoke. Really, I don’t. I say”—Peter, no ladies’ man, felt thoroughly uncomfortable; bit off the question. “Yes”—began the girl.
He plunged in. “It’s frightfully stupid of me, of course—I mean, the question sounds perfectly idiotic—but I’m certain I’ve seen you before—somewhere or other.”
The girl laughed. “And I’ve been thinking the same about you ever since you opened that carriage door. You”—she hesitated—“you’re terribly like somebody I used to know very well. Only we can’t have met before, because I only landed in England for the first time yesterday evening. . . . Unless. . . .”
She stared at him, positively stared; dumb with excitement.
“Unless what? . . .” asked Peter. He too felt himself on the verge of some amazing disclosure.
“Unless you’re Mr. Gordon’s cousin Peter. . . .” His look alone told the girl all she wanted to know; and she rushed on, tripping over her words. . . . “You are. I felt certain of it. You’re Patricia’s husband, and you live at a house called Sunflowers, and you’ve got two children, and you’re in the tobacco business, at least you were in the tobacco business, and you’ve been wounded and, and, and—is Mr. Gordon quite well?”
“He was yesterday. I didn’t see him before I came up this morning. And”—Peter’s mind leaped to the only possible conclusion—“your photograph’s still on his writing-table.”