"Well," said he, "I guess you're pretty busy and I've been talking too long as it is. Let me have that statement as quick as you like. Good morning!"
He strode to the door, shut it behind him, and then when he was on the landing, his movements became suddenly more leisurely. Instead of striding downstairs he stood looking curiously in turn at each closed door. It was an old fashioned house and rather a rabbit warren of an office, and it would seem as though for some reason he wished to leave no door unwatched. In a moment he heard the lawyer's bell ring and very slowly he moved down a step or two while a clerk answered the call and withdrew. And then he took a cigar from his case, bit off the end, and felt for matches; all this being very deliberately done, and his eye following the clerk. Thus when a girl emerged from the room along a passage, she met, apparently quite accidentally, Mr. Cromarty of Stanesland.
At the first glance it was quite evident that the meeting gave more pleasure to the gentleman than to the lady. Indeed, the girl seemed too disconcerted to hide the fact.
"Good morning, Miss Farmond," said he with what seemed intended for an air of surprise; as though he had no idea she had been within a mile of him. "You coming to see Simon on business too?" And then taking the cue from her constrained manner, he added hurriedly, and with a note of dejection he could not quite hide, "Well, good-bye."
The girl's expression suddenly changed, and with that change the laird of Stanesland's curious movements became very explicable, for her face was singularly charming when she smiled. It was a rather pale but fresh and clear-skinned face, wide at the forehead and narrowing to a firm little chin, with long-lashed expressive eyes, and a serious expression in repose. Her smile was candid, a little coy and irresistibly engaging, and her voice was very pleasant, rather low, and most engaging too. She was of middle height and dressed in mourning. Her age seemed rather under than over twenty.
"Oh," she said, with a touch of hesitation at first, "I didn't mean——" She broke off, glanced at the clerk, who being a discreet young man was now in the background, and then with lowered voice confessed, "The fact is, Mr. Cromarty, I'm not really supposed to be here at all. That's to say nobody knows I am."
Mr. Cromarty looked infinitely relieved.
"And you don't want anybody to know?" he said in his outspoken way. "Right you are. I can lie low and say nothing, or lie hard and say what you like; whichever you choose."
"Lying low will do," she smiled. "But please don't think I'm doing anything very wrong."
"I'll think what you tell me," he said gallantly. "I was thinking Silent Simon was in luck's way—but perhaps you're going to wig him?"