"A fellow countrywoman of yours. I wonder if you know her?" Sybil whispered, as a radiant vision in pale pink under a large "picture" hat sailed in, and was greeted with somewhat frigid politeness by Mrs. Sadgrove.
"No; I am not acquainted with either the name or the lady," Leonie replied, struck with a strange antipathy to the bold eyes that seemed to be mastering every detail in the room, herself included. Indeed, Mrs. Talmage Eglinton stared so markedly both at Leonie and her mother that Mrs. Sadgrove thought they must have met, and promptly introduced them as American friends staying in the house. The introduction was not a success, for the Shermans knew everyone worth knowing in American society, and the fact that they had never so much as heard of Mrs. Talmage Eglinton argued her outside the pale.
The elegant vision received her snubbing with cool unconcern, and after a few generalities turned again to her hostess and engaged in the trifling chatter of a "duty" call, making one or two unsuccessful attempts to include Sybil, to whom she had not been introduced, in the conversation.
"That woman is a brute," Sybil said to Leonie under her breath. "I'll tell you about her when she's gone."
The door opened, and there entered an iron-gray man of sixty, whose coming might almost have been the cause of expediting the departure of Mrs. Talmage Eglinton, so quickly did she rise and begin her good-byes.
"No, really I can't stay, dear Mrs. Sadgrove, even to have the pleasure of a chat with the General," she prattled. "I have half a dozen other calls to pay, and you have beguiled me into staying too long already. Good-bye. Good-bye, General. Pray don't trouble to come down." And with a half-impudent bow of exaggerated respect to the Shermans, she swept out, with the master of the house in attendance.
General Sadgrove returned at once to the drawing-room after escorting the visitor to her carriage. He was a man who bore his years easily; singularly slow and scant of speech, but alert of eye and almost jaunty in the erectness of his bearing. He had gained his C.B. for prominent services in the suppression of Thuggee and Dacoity, and his name is still held in wholesome dread by the criminals of India whose method is violence. It had once been said of him by a high official: "Jem Sadgrove doesn't have to worry about finding clues. He makes them for himself, and they always yield a true scent. He's got the nose of a fox-terrier, and the patience and speed of a greyhound."
But that was long ago, and it might be supposed that in such pleasant duties of retirement as the ushering out of dainty visitors from his wife's tea-table his faculties had become blunted. Nor in the law-abiding precincts of Belgravia could there be scope for the old-time energy. Yet Mrs. Sadgrove, who knew the signs and portents of her husband's face, looked twice at him with just a shade of anxiety as she asked whether he would take some tea.
"Thanks," he said, and taking his cup he went and stood on the rug before the empty hearth. He stirred his tea slowly, with his eyes wandering from one to the other of the four women in the room.
"You good people seem singularly calm, considering that you must just have been listening to a very exciting story," he remarked.