"For my part I don't wish it," Paul answered carelessly. "Beautiful she is; but she bears the knowledge of it about with her like an overpowering perfume, and is the very impersonation of the insolence of riches!"
"Why, Paul, you are not often either narrow-minded or unjust."
"How dare she comment upon these Belgians, who nearly all possess a smattering of English, under their very noses!" continued Paul, angrily. "'Quite nice and respectable,' indeed! As she and her mother were in a fix I was bound, as a man, to offer my services; but I did it unwillingly."
Paul's indignation was short-lived, and he and Sally walked along the streets leisurely, on their way back to their hotel, talking on indifferent subjects. They paused in the hall of the hotel, running their eyes over the letters displayed outside the post-office, to see if the evening post had brought any for them. There were none for Sally; but two or three for Paul, that had been forwarded from his chambers in London.
"I'll go into the salon and read them, and then we'll go upstairs to bed. I feel infected by the early hours of these foreigners," he said, yawning a little.
Sally turned over the leaves of a paper whilst her brother opened his letters. The last of them he read and re-read several times; then rose and laid his hand on Sally's shoulder.
"I'm awfully sorry, Sally, but I shall have to go back to London by the first train to-morrow."
The long-drawn "O-o-o-h!" was powerless to express half the disappointment his sister felt.
"It's business, I suppose: everything nasty is always business," she said at last.
"Well, no, it's not business; and it certainly is not pleasure. You remember I had an old godfather, Major Lessing? I'm sure he amply fulfilled his godfatherly duty by the silver milk-jug he gave me at my baptism—which I've never set eyes on for many a long year, by the way—and the tips he shoved into the palm of my hand whenever I paid him a visit on my way from school. I don't think I've seen him since; and why, now that he's dying, he has a particular desire for a call, I can't tell you. It's inconvenient, to say the least of it."