'This is an unexpected——' I paused. He thought I was going to say, 'pleasure,' but I finished it, 'intrusion.' His face fell. 'How did you know we were at Lungern, Mr. Tillington?'
'My respected relative,' he answered, laughing. 'She mentioned—casually—' his eyes met mine—'that you were stopping in a chalet. And as I was on my way back to the diplomatic mill, I thought I might just as well walk over the Grimsel and the Furca, and then on to the Gotthard. The Court is at Monza. So it occurred to me ... that in passing ... I might venture to drop in and say how-do-you-do to you.'
'Thank you,' I answered, severely—but my heart spoke otherwise—'I do very well. And you, Mr. Tillington?'
'Badly,' he echoed. 'Badly, since you went away from Schlangenbad.'
I gazed at his dusty feet. 'You are tramping,' I said, cruelly. 'I suppose you will get forward for lunch to Meiringen?'
'I— I did not contemplate it.'
'Indeed?'
He grew bolder. 'No; to say the truth, I half hoped I might stop and spend the day here with you.'
'Elsie,' I remarked firmly, 'if Mr. Tillington persists in planting himself upon us like this, one of us must go and investigate the kitchen department.'
Elsie rose like a lamb. I have an impression that she gathered we wanted to be left alone.