“No, I shall let it if I can.”
“Oh, you will have no difficulty in doing that. People live in Russell Square again now, and try to make one believe that it is a fashionable quarter. Your father stayed on there because the carpets fitted the rooms, and on account of other ancestral conveniences. He did not live there—he knew nothing of his immediate environments. He lived in Phoenicia.”
“Then,” continued Guy Oscard, “I shall go abroad.”
“Ah! Will you have a second cup? Why will you go abroad?”
Guy Oscard paused for a moment. “I know an old hippopotamus in a certain African river who has twice upset me. I want to go back and shoot him.”
“Don't go at once; that would be running away from it—not from the hippopotamus—from the inquest. It does not matter being upset in an African river; but you must not be upset in London by—an inquest.”
“I did not propose going at once,” replied Guy Oscard, with a peculiar smile which Lady Cantourne thought she understood. “It will take me some time to set my affairs in order—the will, and all that.”
Lady Cantourne waited with perfectly suppressed curiosity, and while she was waiting Millicent Chyne came into the room. The girl was dressed with her habitual perfect taste and success, and she came forward with a smile of genuine pleasure, holding out a small hand neatly gloved in Suede. Her ladyship was looking not at Millicent, but at Guy Oscard.
Millicent was glad that he had called, and said so. She did not add that during the three months that had elapsed since Jack Meredith's sudden departure she had gradually recognised the approaching ebb of a very full tide of popularity. It was rather dull at times, when Jack's letters arrived at intervals of two and sometimes of three weeks—when her girl friends allowed her to see somewhat plainly that she was no longer to be counted as one of themselves. An engagement sits as it were on a young lady like a weak heart on a schoolboy, setting her apart in work and play, debarring her from participation in that game of life which is ever going forward where young folks do congregate.
Moreover, she liked Guy Oscard. He aroused her curiosity. There was something in him—something which she vaguely suspected to be connected with herself—which she wanted to drag out and examine. She possessed more than the usual allowance of curiosity—which is saying a good deal; for one may take it that the beginning of all things in the feminine mind is curiosity. They want to know what is inside Love before they love. Guy Oscard was a new specimen of the genus homo; and while remaining perfectly faithful to Jack, Miss Millicent Chyne saw no reason why she should not pass the time by studying him, merely, of course, in a safe and innocent manner. She was one of those intelligent young ladies who think deeply—about young men. And such thinking usually takes the form of speculation as to how the various specimens selected will act under specified circumstances. The circumstances need hardly be mentioned. Young men are only interesting to young women in circumstances strictly personal to and bearing upon themselves. In a word, maidens of a speculative mind are always desirous of finding out how different men will act when they are in love; and we all know and cannot fail to applaud the assiduity with which they pursue their studies.