“He married a rather pretty woman, a widow, a Mrs. Germain.”
Ingram looked sharply up. “I'll take my oath he didn't. I met her the other day. She's Mrs. Duplessis.”
Chevenix stared at him. “Why, I know the chap. Where did you meet her? Where do they live?” he asked his friend.
But Ingram had other things to think of, and returned to his letter. “I shall take this as she means it, Bill. She wants me to go slow—I can take a hint. She shall have her head. When I get her down to Wanless we shall be all right. The place isn't fit to live in now, you know. I was up there last week—and found everything going to pot. Not a horse fit to ride—not a sound one amongst 'em. Plantations all to pieces—gardens—tenants in arrears—oh, beastly! She'll have it all to rights in no time, and she'll simply revel in it. She'll come round—you leave that to me. If I can't get a girl round I ought to.”
Chevenix listened, and judged. He knew his Ingram pretty well, and took his confidence, like his confidences, for what they were worth. “Where did you say that the Duplessis lived?”
“I think she's in a hotel. It might be Brown's. I believe it is Brown's. What d'you want her for?”
“Think she knows some of my people,” said Chevenix, and presently took himself out of the Coffee Tree Club.
But Sanchia, her day's work done, went—not to church, but to Bloomsbury. Entering the portals of the Museum, she swam to the portico, full of her cares. But smoothly, swiftly, she went, with that even, gliding gait peculiar to her kind, which has precisely the effect of a swan breasting the stream. Past the door, she turned to the left, not glancing at the aligned Caesars, scarcely bowing to Demeter of the remote gaze. In that long gallery, where the Caryatid thrusts her bosom that her neck may be the prouder to the weight, she saw the objects of her present pilgrimage—beaten, blind, and dumb, immovable as the eternal hills, the Attic Fates; and before them at gaze, his arms folded over his narrow chest, Morosine the Pole.
Whether she had sought him here or not, she did not falter in her advance. Smoothly, swiftly, and silently she came to him and stood by his side. He turned his head, looked sharply at her pale face and sad eyes, then resumed his meditation before the Three. Neither of them had a care to speak.
Presently Morosine said, “I knew that you would be here.” He kept his face towards the mystery, and so did she when she echoed him. “Did you know that? You know me, I think.”