“Herr Razumov,” she explained.
She had heard enough of our conversation before we left to know why her young mistress was going out. Therefore, when the gentleman gave his name at the door, she admitted him at once.
“No one could have foreseen that,” Miss Haldin murmured, with her serious grey eyes fixed upon mine. And, remembering the expression of the young man’s face seen not much more than four hours ago, the look of a haunted somnambulist, I wondered with a sort of awe.
“You asked my mother first?” Miss Haldin inquired of the maid.
“No. I announced the gentleman,” she answered, surprised at our troubled faces.
“Still,” I said in an undertone, “your mother was prepared.”
“Yes. But he has no idea....”
It seemed to me she doubted his tact. To her question how long the gentleman had been with her mother, the maid told us that Der Herr had been in the drawing-room no more than a short quarter of an hour.
She waited a moment, then withdrew, looking a little scared. Miss Haldin gazed at me in silence.
“As things have turned out,” I said, “you happen to know exactly what your brother’s friend has to tell your mother. And surely after that...”