"You could never guess! My father has gone away to Havre, quite early this morning, and will not return for three or four days. He has never left me since we came to live here till now, and I cannot tell you how strange and restless and half frightened I feel; but Madame Davilliers has kindly asked me to stay with her, and I go there to dinner to-day. I should have gone sooner, but I thought you might call, so I waited."
Her perfect easy candor was charming, yet mortifying to his amour propre.
"Thank you very much; I am glad to have an opportunity of hearing of your intended movements from yourself; it would have been an awful shock to have found every one gone; but," looking keenly at her, "what have you been doing or suffering? You are pale. There is a weary look in your eyes."
"And you are like my dear father, too ready to think I must be suffering or unhappy, or something dreadful, if I look a shade paler than usual. I am quite well." She smiled, stopped abruptly, let her eyes droop, while the color rose softly in her cheek, and her smile was replaced by a serious, almost sad expression in the curves of her mouth.
"You have something to tell me? something that disturbs you. Speak, you may trust me."
"I am sure I can. Well, I was foolishly frightened yesterday. We, Madame Weber and I, had gone to hear the band play in the Tuileries Gardens. It was very pleasant under the trees, and we sat a long time. Just as we rose to return home, two gentlemen came up from a side walk; one I recognized at a little distance to be Mr. Vincent; the other, when they came nearer, I saw was the same man whom I noticed at Auteuil; you know who I mean? He looked at me so strangely, I felt uneasy, frightened, and I hurried Madame Weber away. They must have taken some shorter path, for when we reached the gate opposite the Rue de la Paix they came upon us again. Mr. Vincent raised his hat, and so did the other, and stared at me with such an odd piercing look of dislike and doubt—Oh! I cannot forget it."
"Yes," said Madame Weber, gathering from Elsie's expression, and the words "Tuileries Gardens," that she was relating the events of yesterday, "that gentleman there was not at all polite; he glared at mademoiselle, Mon Dieu! like a savage beast; nevertheless he was distinguished, and no doubt noble."
"I think you must be mistaken," said Glynn; "the man whom you saw at the races left Paris nearly three weeks ago. I should most probably have seen him had he returned. You must have been mistaken."
Elsie shook her head. "I could never be mistaken in that man," she said.
Glynn was greatly struck by the reappearance of Deering, but he threw off the impression. It was probably an illusion on the part of Elsie. That Deering, the proudest of men, should be walking with so doubtful a personage as Vincent seemed almost incredible. He would make inquiries, however. Meantime he addressed himself to soothe Elsie's evident uneasiness.