“I certainly cannot be mistaken. Have I the honor of once more meeting Lady Isabel Vane?”
She rose from the seat, and allowed him to take her hand, answering a few words at random, for her wits seemed wool-gathering.
“I beg your pardon—I should have said Lady Isabel Carlyle. Time has elapsed since we parted, and in the pleasure of seeing you again so unexpectedly, I thought of you as you were then.”
She sat down again, the brilliant flush of emotion dying away upon her cheeks. It was the loveliest face Francis Levison had seen since he saw hers, and he thought so as he gazed at it.
“What can have brought you to this place?” he inquired, taking a seat beside her.
“I have been ill,” she explained, “and am ordered to the sea-side. We should not have come here but for Mrs. Ducie; we expected to meet her. Mr. Carlyle only left me this morning.”
“Mrs. Ducie is off to Ems. I see them occasionally. They have been fixtures in Paris for some time. You do indeed look ill,” he abruptly added, in a tone of sympathy, “alarmingly ill. Is there anything I can do for you?”
She was aware that she looked unusually ill at that moment, for the agitation and surprise of meeting him were fading away, leaving her face an ashy whiteness. Exceedingly vexed and angry with herself did she feel that the meeting should have power to call forth emotion. Until that moment she was unconscious that she retained any sort of feeling for Captain Levison.
“Perhaps I have ventured out too early,” she said, in a tone that would seem to apologize for her looks: “I think I will return. I shall meet my servant, no doubt. Good-morning, Captain Levison.”
“But indeed you do not appear fit to walk alone,” he remonstrated. “You must allow me to see you safely home.”