“Yes, I know it. Mrs. Hallam is my aunt, and you must be Miss Leighton.”
“Oh!” Bertha exclaimed, her attitude changing at once, as she recognized the stranger. “Your aunt is expecting you, but not quite so soon. She will be very sorry not to have been here to meet you. She has gone to the opera. Miss Sanderson is in town.”
“So they told me at the office,” Rex said, explaining that he had crossed a little sooner than he had intended, but did not telegraph his aunt, as he wished to surprise her. He then added, “I am too late for dinner, but I suppose I can have my supper up here, which will be better than climbing the three flights of stairs again. That scoop of an elevator has gone ashore for repairs, and I had to walk up.”
Ringing the bell, he ordered his supper, while Bertha started to leave the salon, saying she hoped he would make himself comfortable until his aunt returned.
“Don’t go,” he said, stepping between her and the door to detain her. “Stay and keep me company. I have been shut up in a close railway carriage all day with French and Germans, and am dying to talk to some one who speaks English.”
He made her sit down in the chair from which she had risen when he came in, and, drawing another near to her, said, “You do not seem like a stranger, but rather like an old acquaintance. Why, for a whole week I have heard of little else but you.”
“Of me!” Bertha said, in surprise.
He replied, “I crossed with Mr. and Mrs. Fred Thurston. She, I believe, is your cousin, and was never tired of talking of you, and has sent more love to you than one man ought to carry for some one else.”
“Cousin Louie! Yes, I knew she was coming about this time. And you crossed with her?” Bertha said, thinking what a fine-looking man he was, while there came to her mind what Louie had said of his graciousness of manner, which made every woman think she was especially pleasing to him, whether she were old or young, pretty or plain, rich or poor. He talked so easily and pleasantly and familiarly that it was difficult to think of him as a stranger, and she was not sorry that he had bidden her stay.
When supper was on the table he looked it over a moment, and then said to the waiter, “Bring dishes and napkins enough for two;” then to Bertha, “If I remember the table d’hôtes abroad, they are not of a nature to make one refuse supper at ten o’clock; so I hope you are ready to join me.”