With a stifled ejaculation the man standing in the shadow of the tall, old-fashioned chimneypiece wheeled round, and Ann found herself looking straight into the grey eyes of the Englishman from Montricheux. For a moment there was a silence—the silence of utter mutual astonishment, while Ann was wretchedly conscious of the flush that mounted slowly to her very temples. The man was the first to recover himself.
“So,” he said, “you are Miss Lovell!”
Something in his tone stung Ann into composure.
“Yes,” she replied coolly. “You don’t sound altogether pleased at the discovery.”
“Pleased?” His eyes rested on her with a species of repressed annoyance. “It doesn’t make much difference whether we’re—either of us—pleased or not, does it?”
His meaning appeared perfectly plain to Ann. For some reason which she could not fathom he found her appearance on the scene the very reverse of pleasing.
“I don’t see that it matters in any case,” she replied frostily. “The fact that I happen to be your agent’s sister doesn’t compel you to see any more of me than you wish to.”
“True. And if I’d known you were here I wouldn’t have come blundering in this morning.”
“I arrived yesterday,” vouchsafed Ann. “Won’t you sit down?” she added with perfunctory politeness. She seated herself, and in obedience to her gesture he mechanically followed suit.
“Yes, you were expected to-day, weren’t you? I’d forgotten,” he said abstractedly.