Kosmaroff seemed to be hardly listening. He was staring in front of him, his eyes narrow with thought and suspicion. He seemed to have forgotten Netty and his love for her as suddenly as he had remembered it in the salon a few minutes earlier.
“Is it that he has fallen in love—or is it that he desires information which she alone can give him?” he asked at length. Which was, after all, the most natural thought that could come to him at that moment and in that place. For every man must see the world through his own eyes.
Before she could answer him the town clocks struck ten. Netty rose hastily and drew her cloak round her.
“I must go,” she said; “I have been here much more than five minutes. Why did you let me stay? Oh—why did you make me come?”
And she hurried towards the gate, Kosmaroff walking by her side.
“You will come again,” he said. “Now that you have come once—you cannot be so cruel. Now that you know. I am nearly always at the river, at the foot of the Bednarska. You might walk past, and say a word in passing. You might even come in my boat. Bring that woman with the black hair, your aunt, if necessary. If would be safer, perhaps. Do you speak French?”
“Yes—and she does not.”
“Good—then we can talk. I must not go beyond the gate. Good-bye—and remember that I love you—always, always!”
He stood at the gate and watched her hurry across the square towards the side door of the hotel, where the concierge was so busy that he could scarcely keep a note of all who passed in and out.
“It is all fair—all fair,” said Kosmaroff to himself, seeking to convince himself. “Besides—has the world been fair to me?”