“Spare me five minutes, Miss Wynton,” he said. “I want to tell you something.”
Mrs. de la Vere pirouetted round on him before the girl could answer.
“Miss Wynton is just going to bed,” she informed him graciously. “You know how tired she is, Mr. Spencer. You must wait till the morning.”
“I don’t feel like waiting; but I promise to cut down my remarks to one minute—by the clock.” He answered Mrs. de la Vere, but looked at Helen.
Her color rose and fell almost with each beat of her heart. She saw the steadfast purpose in his eyes, and shrank from the decision she would be called upon to make. Hardly realizing what form the words took, she gave faint utterance to the first lucid idea that presented itself. “I think—I must really—go to my room,” she murmured. “You wouldn’t—like me—to faint twice in one evening—Mr. Spencer?”
It was an astonishing thing to say, the worst thing possible. It betrayed an exact knowledge of his purpose in seeking this interview. His eyes blazed with a quick light. It seemed that he was answered before he spoke.
“Not one second. Go away, do!” broke in Mrs. de la Vere, whisking Helen toward the elevator without further parley. But she shot a glance at Spencer over her shoulder that he could not fail to interpret as a silent message of encouragement. Forthwith he viewed her behavior from a more favorable standpoint.
“Guess the feminine make-up is more complex than I counted on,” he communed, as he bent over a table to find a match, that being a commonplace sort of action calculated to disarm suspicion, lest others might be observing him, and wondering why the women retired so promptly.
“I like your American, my dear,” said Mrs. de la Vere sympathetically, in the solitude of the corridor.