"But she won't marry him," Anabel said virtuously. "I'm sure I can't understand such a nature. They've been engaged all their lives and——"
"She doesn't deserve anything better than to lose him," her mother broke in. "If he should chance to look in some other direction for a while she'd change her tactics, no doubt."
"Oh—no doubt," echoed a deep male voice, the tones as cool as the water-drops plashing into the fountain beside him.
"Anyway, it's her kind—those women who would be sirens if the mythological age hadn't passed—who cause so much trouble in the world," Mrs. Sefton wound up. At fifty-two women can look upon sirens dispassionately.
After a while the music began throbbing again, and a college boy came up to claim Anabel. The trio melted quietly away. I rose from my chair and started toward the door when I saw that Maitland Tait had not left with the others. He was standing motionless beside the fountain.
I came up with him and he did not start. Evidently he had known all the while that I was in the room.
"Well?" he said, with a certain aloofness that strangely enough gave him the appearance of intense aristocracy. "Well?"
"Well—" I echoed, feebly, but before I could go away farther he had drawn himself up sharply.
"I was coming to look for you—to say good-by," he said.
"Good-by?" I repeated blankly. "You mean good night, don't you?"