From the windows the view was all unchanged; he could see the trees of the Green Park, and the arch surmounted by the hideous statue of the 'Iron Duke,' and even the drowsy hum of the streets was the same as of old.
Chute had seen vast and airy halls in the City of Palaces by the Hooghly; but, of late, much of his time had been spent under canvas, or in shabby straw-roofed bungalows; and now the double drawing-room of this splendid London house, though familiar enough to him, as we have said, appealed to his sense of costliness, with its rich furniture, its lofty mirrors, lace curtains, gilded cornices, statues, and jardinières, loading the atmosphere with the perfume of heliotrope and tea-roses, and brought home to him, by its details, the gulf that wealth on one hand, and unmerited misfortune on the other, had opened between him and Clare Collingwood.
A rustle of silk was heard, and suddenly she stood before him.
She was very, very pale, and while striving to conceal her emotion under the cool exterior enforced by good breeding, it was evident that the hand in which she held his card was trembling.
But she presented the other frankly to Trevor Chute, and hastily begging him to be seated, bade him welcome to England, and skilfully threw herself into a sofa with her back to the light.
'We saw in the papers that your regiment was coming home, and then that it had landed at Portsmouth,' she remarked, after a brief pause, and Chute's heart beat all the more lightly that she seemed still to have some interest in his movements. 'Poor Ida,' she resumed, 'is confined to her room; Violet is at home,—you remember Violet? but I am so sorry that papa is out.'
'My visit was to him, or rather to Mrs. Beverley,' said Chute, with the slightest tinge of bitterness in his tone; 'and believe me that I should not have intruded at all on Sir Carnaby Collingwood but for the dying wish of my poor friend your brother-in-law.'
'Intruded! Oh, how can you speak thus, Captain Chute—and to me?' she asked in almost breathless voice, while her respiration became quicker, and a little flush crossed her pale face for a second.
Then Chute began to feel more than ever the miserable awkwardness of the situation, and of the task which had been set him; for when a man and woman have ever been more to each other than mere friends, they can never meet in the world simply as acquaintances again.
For a minute he looked earnestly at Clare, and thought that never before, even in the buried past that seemed so distant now—yet only four years ago—had she seemed more lovely than now.