“Then I share your pleasure, though, to be candid, I was thinking that a woman’s kiss has infinite gradations. It may savor of Paradise or the Dead Sea.”
“But she told me how grieved she was that she had behaved so foolishly, and appealed to me not to let the folly of a day break the friendship of years.”
“Ah! Millicent picks up some well turned sentiments on the stage. Come out for a little stroll, and tell me all about it.”
Helen hesitated. “It will soon be tea time,” she said, with a self conscious blush. She had promised Spencer to walk with him to the château; but her visit to Millicent had intervened, and he was not on the veranda at the moment.
“We need not go far. The sun has garnished the roads for us. What do you say if we make for the village, and interview Johann Klucker’s cat on the weather?”
His tone was quite reassuring. To her transparent honesty of purpose it seemed better that they should discuss Millicent’s motive in coming to the hotel and then dismiss it for ever. “A most excellent idea,” she cried lightly. “I have been writing all the morning, so a breath of fresh air will be grateful.”
They passed down the steps.
They had not gone more than a few paces when the driver of an empty carriage pulled up his vehicle and handed Bower a telegram.
“They gave it to me at St. Moritz, Herr Bower,” he said. “I took a message there for Herr Spencer, and they asked me to bring this to you, as it would reach you more quickly than if it came by the post.”