“We shall meet in Hamley,” she said composedly, as she saw her husband leave the crush and come towards her. As Eglington noticed David, a curious enigmatical glance flashed from his eyes. He came forward, however, with outstretched hand.
“I am sorry I was not at the Foreign Office when you called to-day. Welcome back to England, home—and beauty.” He laughed in a rather mirthless way, but with a certain empressement, conscious, as he always was, of the onlookers. “You have had a busy time in Egypt?” he continued cheerfully, and laughed again.
David laughed slightly, also, and Hylda noticed that it had a certain resemblance in its quick naturalness to that of her husband.
“I am not sure that we are so busy there as we ought to be,” David answered. “I have no real standards. I am but an amateur, and have known nothing of public life. But you should come and see.”
“It has been in my mind. An ounce of eyesight is worth a ton of print. My lady was there once, I believe”—he turned towards her—“but before your time, I think. Or did you meet there, perhaps?” He glanced at both curiously. He scarcely knew why a thought flashed into his mind—as though by some telepathic sense; for it had never been there before, and there was no reason for its being there now.
Hylda saw what David was about to answer, and she knew instinctively that he would say they had never met. It shamed her. She intervened as she saw he was about to speak.
“We were introduced for the first time to-night,” she said; “but Claridge Pasha is part of my education in the world. It is a miracle that Hamley should produce two such men,” she added gaily, and laid her fan upon her husband’s arm lightly. “You should have been a Quaker, Harry, and then you two would have been—”
“Two Quaker Don Quixotes,” interrupted Eglington ironically.
“I should not have called you a Don Quixote,” his wife lightly rejoined, relieved at the turn things had taken. “I cannot imagine you tilting at wind-mills—”
“Or saving maidens in distress? Well, perhaps not; but you do not suggest that Claridge Pasha tilts at windmills either—or saves maidens in distress. Though, now I come to think, there was an episode.” He laughed maliciously. “Some time ago it was—a lass of the cross-roads. I think I heard of such an adventure, which did credit to Claridge Pasha’s heart, though it shocked Hamley at the time. But I wonder, was the maiden really saved?”