And then she left him, walking quickly towards the villa; but she wheeled round from a short distance—and he was suddenly amazed by her smile, a gay smile it was, and it made her face look all golden. She called to him softly:—
“You’ll be ready then, in less than an hour?”
“I’m ready now,” he cried back to that glorious smile. And standing there, he watched her all the way to the house, the tall, the fearless, the mysterious Virginia....
2
It was the lesser and more comfortable drawing-room; in which, before lunch or dinner, was always a cocktail for any one who cared to mix one, or sherry and the like for those with more “old world” tastes. George Tarlyon was being “old world” this morning, sprawling in a large arm-chair with a glass of sherry to hand. George Tarlyon’s white-flannelled legs were stuck straight out, and his blue, slightly frozen blue eyes were mocking the brown tips of his white shoes with an almost serious expression; and George Tarlyon’s crisp fair hair shone with the water of his bath. Handsome, careless, reckless George Tarlyon.... A Viking, thought Ivor, as he came in at the window. And George Tarlyon awoke lazily from his contemplation.
“Hallo!” he said quite genially. “Have you been thinking out another book on courtesans, pacing up and down like that? God, I wish I could think!...”
“Ah!” said Ivor absently, and took a cigarette from a box on the table. Tarlyon at once struck a match and held it out to him from his chair.
“Must make striking these awful French matches awkward sometimes,” Tarlyon referred sympathetically to his arm.
“Not so awkward,” Ivor said, “as it makes a good many other things. As you can imagine——”
“I’ve no imagination,” Tarlyon complained frankly. “Have a glass-of-wine instead?” (One referred even to a tankard of ale as “a-glass-of-wine.”)