“It will not be necessary; here is Peter Ivanovitch himself coming up. But he is not alone. He is seldom alone now.”
Hearing that Peter Ivanovitch was approaching, Miss Haldin was not so pleased as she might have been expected to be. Somehow she had lost the desire to see either the heroic captive or Madame de S—, and the reason of that shrinking which came upon her at the very last minute is accounted for by the feeling that those two people had not been treating the woman with the cat kindly.
“Would you please let me pass?” said Miss Haldin at last, touching lightly the shoulder of the dame de compagnie.
But the other, pressing the cat to her breast, did not budge.
“I know who is with him,” she said, without even looking back.
More unaccountably than ever Miss Haldin felt a strong impulse to leave the house.
“Madame de S— may be engaged for some time yet, and what I have got to say to Peter Ivanovitch is just a simple question which I might put to him when I meet him in the grounds on my way down. I really think I must go. I have been some time here, and I am anxious to get back to my mother. Will you let me pass, please?”
The dame de compagnie turned her head at last.
“I never supposed that you really wanted to see Madame de S—,” she said, with unexpected insight. “Not for a moment.” There was something confidential and mysterious in her tone. She passed through the door, with Miss Haldin following her, on to the terrace, and they descended side by side the moss-grown stone steps. There was no one to be seen on the part of the drive visible from the front of the house.
“They are hidden by the trees over there,” explained Miss Haldin’s new acquaintance, “but you shall see them directly. I don’t know who that young man is to whom Peter Ivanovitch has taken such a fancy. He must be one of us, or he would not be admitted here when the others come. You know what I mean by the others. But I must say that he is not at all mystically inclined. I don’t know that I have made him out yet. Naturally I am never for very long in the drawing-room. There is always something to do for me, though the establishment here is not so extensive as the villa on the Riviera. But still there are plenty of opportunities for me to make myself useful.”