'I will,' he answered simply, and left the room.
CHAPTER XI.
MRS. WYLIE LEADS.
As Theodore Trist mounted the broad bare staircase of Suffolk Mansions, his quick ears detected the sound of Mrs. Wylie's door being drawn forcibly to behind departing footsteps.
He continued his way without increase of speed. The person whose descent was audible came slowly to meet him, and in a few moments they were face to face upon a small stone-paved landing.
Neither departed from the unwritten code by which Englishmen regulate their actions; they merely stared at each other. Trist was unchanged, except for a slight heaviness in build—the additional weight, one might call it, of years and experience; but Huston was sadly altered since these two had met beneath a Southern sky. Both were conscious of a sudden recollection of sandy plain and camp environments, and Huston changed colour slightly, or, to be more correct, he lost colour, and his eyes wavered. He was painfully conscious of his disadvantage in this trifling matter of appearance, and he had reason to remember with dread the ruthless penetration of the calm soft eyes fixed upon him. Years before he had suspected that Theodore Trist was cognizant of a trifling fact which had at times suggested itself to him—namely, that, despite braided coat and bright sword, despite Queen's commission and Sandhurst, he, Alfred Woodruff Charles Huston, was no soldier.
Each looked at the other with the hesitation of men who, meeting, recognise a face, and half await a greeting of some description. In a moment it was too late, and they passed on—one upstairs, the other down, with unconscious symbolism—having exchanged nothing more than that expectant, hesitating stare of mutual recognition and mutual curiosity.
Each was at heart a gentleman, and under other circumstances, in the presence of a third person, or with the view of sparing a hostess anxiety, they would undoubtedly have shaken hands. But here, beneath the eye of none but their God (who, in His wisdom, has purposely planted a tiny seed of divergence in our hearts), they saw no cause for acting that which could, at its best, have been nothing but a semi-truth.
When Trist greeted Mrs. Wylie a few moments later, he detected her glance of anxiety; but it was against his strange principles to take the initiative, so he waited until she might speak.
After a few commonplaces dexterously handled, she suddenly changed her tone.