He looked at her for a quick moment and then held out his hand.
"I know," he said; "you're Wog! I've heard such a lot about you. Where's Rita? May I come in?—she got my wire?"
. . . He was in the little hall before she had time to answer him.
Mechanically she led the way into the sitting-room.
In the full electric light she saw him clearly for the first time. Ethel Harrison shuddered.
She saw a large, white face, with pinkish blotches on it here and there—more particularly at the corners of the mouth and about the nostrils. The face had an impression of immense power—of concentration. Beneath the wavy hair and the straight eyebrows, the eyes gleamed and shot out fire—shifting this way and that.
With an extraordinary quickness and comprehension these eyes glanced round the flat and took in its disorder.
. . . "She got my wire?" the man said—finding the spread-out pink paper upon the table in an instant.
"No, Mr. Lothian," Ethel Harrison said gravely. "Rita never got your wire. It came too late."
The glaring light faded out of the man's eyes. His voice, which had been suave and oily, changed utterly. Ethel had wondered at his voice immediately she heard it. It was like that of some shopman selling silks—a fat voice. It had been difficult for her to believe that this was Gilbert Lothian. Rita's great friend, the famous man, her father's favourite modern poet.