He smiled with pleasant familiarity upon the two astonished girls, and then started as though for the first time he recognized the Baroness.
“Baroness!” he cried, bowing profoundly, “this is a very unexpected pleasure! You came by the early train, I presume? A tiresome journey, isn't it?”
But bewilderment and suspicion were all that he could read in reply.
“What—what are YOU doing here?”
He was not in the least disconcerted.
“Meeting my cousins” (he indicated the Misses Gallosh and Maddison with an amiable glance), “whom the Baron has been kind enough to look after till my arrival.”
Audaciously approaching more closely, he added, in a voice intended for her ear and the Baron's alone—
“I must throw myself, I see, upon your mercy, and ask you not to tell any tales out of school. Cousins, you know, don't always want their meetings advertised—do they, Baron?”
Alicia's eyes softened a little.
“Then, they are really your——”