Cliffe hesitated a moment.
"Why, yes," he then said; "I see no reason why you shouldn't go—particularly as your mother means to stay with Margaret Willans."
When, a half hour later, the car started from the bottom of the steps and Mrs. Cliffe turned away with a wave of her hand, Evelyn stood in the drive, asking herself bluntly why she wished to accompany her father. A longing for change had something to do with it; she was getting tired of an aimless and, in a sense, uneventful life, for it was true that occupations that had once been full of pleasurable excitement had begun to pall. But this was not her only object. Grahame was somewhere on the coast she meant to visit, and she might meet him. Evelyn admitted with a blush that she would like to do so.
The next morning a telegram arrived from Cliffe, directing her to join him in town, and ten days later she stood, at evening, on a balcony of the Hotel International, in Havana. It was getting dark, but a few lamps were lighted in the patio, and the moonlight touched one white wall. The air was hot and heavy, and filled with exotic smells, and the sound of alien voices gave Evelyn the sense of change and contrast she had sought. Yet she knew that, so far, the trip had been a failure. It had not banished her restlessness; Havana was as stale as New York. She remembered with regret how different it had been on her first visit. Grahame and his companion had been with her then, and she knew that she missed them.
She turned as a man came out on the balcony that ran along the end of the house. He did not look like a Cuban, and she started when the moonlight fell upon him, for she saw that it was Grahame. He was making for the stairs at the corner where the two balconies joined and did not notice her. Evelyn realized that, as she wore a white dress, her figure would be indistinct against the wall, and, if she did not move in the next few moments, he would go down the stairs and disappear among the people in the patio. If he had meant to enter the hotel, he would not have come that way.
She felt that if she let him go they might not meet again. After all, this might be wiser. Yet her heart beat fast, and she thrilled with a strange excitement as she stood irresolute, knowing that the choice she had to make would be momentous.
Grahame reached the top of the stairs without turning, and was going down when she leaned over the balustrade. She did not consciously decide upon the action; it was as if something had driven her into making it.
"Mr. Grahame!" she called softly.
He looked up with the moonlight on his face and she saw the gleam she had expected in his eyes. Then he came swiftly toward her, and her indecision vanished when she gave him her hand.
"This is a remarkably pleasant surprise, but I didn't see you until you spoke," he said. "Have you just come out of one of the rooms?"