Arrived in London, and knowing Mrs. Romayne to be settled there, he had considered it incumbent on him to call on her, and had written the note which she had received nearly a fortnight ago. He had written it with much the same expression on his face—only a little less pronounced, perhaps—as rested on it now that he was waiting for Mrs. Romayne in her own drawing-room. Through all the changes brought about by the passing of eighteen years, the mental attitude produced in him towards Mrs. Romayne during those weeks of dual solitude at Nice had remained almost untouched, except inasmuch as its disapproval had been accentuated by everything he had heard of her since. It had been vivified and rendered, as it were, tangible and definite by the short interview at Lady Bracondale’s party, which had made her a reality instead of a remembrance to him.
He was standing before a large and very admirable photograph of Julian—Julian at his very best and most attractive—contemplating it with a heavy frown, when the door behind him opened under a light, quick touch, and Mrs. Romayne came into the room.
“It is too shocking to have kept you waiting!” she said. “So glad to see you! I gave myself too much shopping to do, and I have had quite a fearful rush!”
Her voice and manner were very easy, very conventionally cordial; and, as it seemed to Falconer, there was not a natural tone or movement about her. It was her “at home” afternoon, and she was charmingly dressed in something soft and pale-coloured; her eyes were very bright, and the play of expression on her face was even more vivacious and effective than usual—exaggeratedly so, even.
She shook hands and pointed him to a seat, sinking into a chair herself with an affectation of hard-won victory over the “fearful rush”; the subtle assumption of the most superficial society relation as alone existing between them was as insidious and as indefinable as it had been on their previous meeting, and seemed to set the key-note of the situation even before she spoke again.
“It is a frightful season!” she said. “Really horribly busy! They say it is to be a short one—I am sure I trust it is true, if we are any of us to be left alive at the end—and everything seems to be crammed into a few weeks. Don’t you think so? You are very lucky to have arrived half-way through.”
“London just now does not seem to be a particularly desirable place, certainly,” answered Falconer; his manner was very formal and reserved, a great contrast to her apparent ease.
“No!” she said, lifting her eyebrows with a smile. “Now, that sounds rather ungrateful in you, do you know, for London finds you a very desirable visitor. One hears of you everywhere.”
“I am afraid I must confess that I take very little pleasure in going ‘everywhere,’” returned Falconer stiffly. “Social life in London seems to me to have altered for the worse in every direction, since I last took part in it.”
“And yet you go out a great deal!” with a laugh. “That sounds a trifle inconsistent!”