Julian and Miss Pomeroy moved away as if with one consent, and Mrs. Romayne watched them as they went with such a strange intentness in her face, that she looked for the moment as though her consciousness were actually leaving her to follow the two on whom her eyes were fixed.
The idea of the whole entertainment had originated, so people said, in the fact that its giver had spent enormous sums of money in the course of the past three years on the transformation of his grounds into an Italian garden, and the scene from the terrace, as Julian and Miss Pomeroy stepped out on to it, was indeed extraordinarily effective. There was no moon, and thousands of coloured lamps, skilfully disposed, shed a picturesque, uncertain light, under which the long ilex-shaded alleys, the box hedges, the fountains, and the statues produced an illusion which was almost perfect.
“By Jove!” exclaimed Julian in the same strained, excited voice. “Capital, isn’t it? It must be almost worth while to live away here in the wilds of Fulham to have a place capable of being turned into a show like this. Don’t you think so?”
Miss Pomeroy did not answer immediately. Apparently, the excitement created by their dance had rather strengthened than diminished during the interval, and she was playing almost nervously with her fan. Miss Pomeroy was not a nervous person as a rule.
“I don’t know,” she said vaguely. “Yes, it’s very pretty, isn’t it? But I don’t think I should much care to have a big place, do you know. I don’t think places make much difference.”
Her voice was low, and very prettily modulated, and Julian threw a quick sideways glance at her. Except for a flush, and a certain look in her eyes which he could not see, her face was as demure and placid as ever.
“Don’t you?” he said. “You are right, of course, and I am wrong. I can imagine circumstances under which all this would be a howling wilderness to me.”
He looked at her very differently this time, with his eyes recklessly eloquent. She dropped her own eyes quickly, and said softly: