While he was in this state of mind another letter came from Olga Petrovic.
"Why have you not visited me, my friend?" she wrote. "I have been expecting you. Surely you could have found time to drop in for half an hour. Besides, I think I could help you. Lord Knerdon was here yesterday with one or two other Members of the Government. He expressed great interest in you, and said he would like to meet you. Has he not great influence? I shall be here between half-past three and six to-morrow, and some people are calling whom I think you would like to know."
Lord Knerdon, eh? Lord Knerdon was one of the most respected peers in the country, and a man of far-reaching power. He would never call at the house of an adventuress. Yes, he would go.
The street in which Olga Petrovic had taken up her abode was made up of great houses. Only a person of considerable wealth could live there. This he saw at a glance. Also three handsome motor-cars stood at her door. He almost felt nervous as his finger touched the bell.
She received him with a smile of welcome, and yet there was a suggestion of aloofness in her demeanour. She was not the woman he had seen at Jones' Hotel long months before, when she had almost knelt suppliant at his feet.
"Ah, Mr. Faversham," she cried, and there was a suggestion of a foreign accent in her tones, "I am pleased to see you. It is good of such a busy man to spare a few minutes."
A little later she had introduced him to her other visitors—men and women about whose position there could not be a suggestion of doubt. At least, such was his impression. She made a perfect hostess, too, and seemed to be a part of her surroundings. She was a great lady, who met on equal terms some of the best-known people in London. And she was queen of them all. Even as she reigned over the motley crew in that queer gathering in the East of London, so she reigned here in the fashionable West.
In a few minutes he found himself talking with people of whom he had hitherto known nothing except their names, while Olga Petrovic watched him curiously. Her demeanour to him was perfectly friendly, and yet he had the feeling that she regarded him as a social inferior. He was there, not because he stood on the same footing as these people, but on sufferance. After all, he was a Labour Member. Socially he was an outsider, while she was the grand lady.
People condoled with her because her Russian estates had been stolen from her by the Bolshevists, but she was still the Countess Olga Petrovic, bearing one of the greatest names in Europe. She was still rich enough to maintain her position in the wealthiest city in the world. She was still a mystery.
Dick remained for more than an hour. Although he would not admit it to himself, he hoped that he might be able to have a few minutes alone with her. But as some visitors went, others came. She still remained kind to him; indeed, he thought she conveyed an interest in him which she did not show to others. But he was not sure. There was a suggestion of reserve in her friendliness; sometimes, indeed, he thought she was cold and aloof. There were people there who were a hundred times more important than he—people with historic names; and he was a nobody. Perhaps that was why a barrier stood between them.