“Possibly preferred a secretary who couldn’t understand everything he said to the servants. I’ve never pretended to know all Prince Victor’s secrets, you know.”
After a little pause Sofia asked gently: “Did you really need the job so badly, Mr. Karslake?”
“To get it meant more to me than I can tell you—almost as much as to hold on to it does to-day.”
Sofia turned her eyes away at this, and for the rest of the ride—they were homeward bound from a matinée, having dropped Sybil Waring at her flat in Mayfair—kept her thoughts to herself.
Only the most perfunctory civilities passed between them, in fact, until they had been ushered into the study by Nogam, who advised them that Prince Victor had ordered tea to be served there and had promised to be home in good time for it.
The tea service was already set out on a little table beside the fireplace in that room of secrets, whose normal atmosphere of brooding gloom was now the darker for the deepening dusk. Only the tea itself remained to be served, a special rite never performed in that household by hands more profane than those of the major-domo, Shaik Tsin himself. And this last could be counted upon not to put in appearance until Nogam took him word that Victor was waiting.
So, having laid aside her furs and satisfied herself, by a seemingly aimless but in fact exacting survey, that the abominable Sturm was not skulking anywhere in the shadows, Sofia established herself on a lounge that faced the fireplace, while Karslake stood before the fire, looking down with an expectant smile of which she was but half aware.
“Aren’t you going to forgive me?” he asked, quietly, after a time.
Sofia withdrew a pensive gaze from the ruddy bed of coals.
“For what?”