“Since I was afforded the opportunity of personally observing and conversing with the Earl of Drumpipes,” pursued the father, “and of thus forming authoritative conclusions as to the British nobility in general, I have devoted much thought to the subject. While I do not suggest that my well-known views upon the aristocratic institution, as a whole, have undergone any perceptible transformation, I do not shrink from the admission that the thought of being connected by marriage with the bearer of an hereditary title no longer presents itself to me in such repulsive colours as was formerly the case. If, therefore, with your undoubted advantages, it should occur to you to entertain the idea of a possible alliance with the nobility, I would not have you feel that my convictions formed a necessarily insuperable barrier to——“,
“No, no!” the daughter broke in, with a laugh. “I’ll promise to disregard your convictions as much as you like. But now I want you to go out, and kill time by yourself somewhere till luncheon. I want to be left alone. There is some place where elderly American gentlemen can go, isn’t there, without getting into mischief? Oh yes, you must go, and not just downstairs to hang about the hotel entrance, but straight away somewhere. Why? My dear papa, I have my secrets as well as you.”
“But that secret of mine,” he protested feebly, “I assure you, Adele, that it is really nothing at all. That is, it does involve matters both interesting and important; but the fact that I am precluded from mentioning them is in the nature of a pure accident, and wholly without significance.”
“Good-bye till luncheon time,” answered Adele, with affable firmness. “And mind you quit the premises.”
Mr. Skinner found his hat, smiled dubiously at his daughter, and without further parley took himself off.
Adele, left alone, looked at the watch in her girdle, and compared its record with that of the ornate clock on the mantel. She took up the paper and ran an aimless eye over one page after another. Then she walked about with a restless movement, pausing from time to time to bend a frowning yet indifferent inspection upon the scene spread out beyond the balcony.
At last there came a tap on the door, and at sound of this, even as she called out a clear, commanding “Come!” she withdrew all signs of perturbation, or of emotion of any sort, from her beautiful dark countenance.
It was Vestalia who entered the room—Vestalia, clad in daintily unpretentious and becoming garments, neatly gloved, and with much radiant self-possession upon her pretty face. She paused upon the threshold, nodded rather than bowed to her hostess, and let a little smile sparkle in her eyes and play about her rosebud of a mouth.
“Your father does not succeed very well in keeping his secrets, I observe,” she remarked, pleasantly, by way of an overture to conversation.
“Won’t you please to be seated,” said Adele, with exaggerated calmness. She herself took a chair, and slowly surveyed her visitor as she went on: “My father has no secrets from me. He tries to have—once in a blue moon—but it doesn’t come off. I may tell you frankly, however, that he has in this case told me nothing. I found your address, and other information, in looking through his pockets. I am under no obligation to tell you this: I simply feel like it, that’s all. I hate dissimulation.”