She shook her head. “Never was there in my life, Mr. Ludlow. Is that why you looked at me so much when you were here with Dr. Knox this morning?”
“No: I looked at you because your face struck me as being familiar,” I frankly said: “I thought I must have seen you somewhere before. Have I, I wonder?”
“Very likely—if you have been much in the South of France,” she answered: “at a place called Brétage.”
“But I have never been at Brétage.”
“Then I don’t see how we can have met. I have lived there all my life. My father and mother died there: my poor husband died there. I only came away from it last year.”
“It must be my fancy, I suppose. One does see likenesses——”
“Captain Collinson,” shouted the butler again.
A military-looking man, got up in the pink of fashion, loomed in with a lordly air; you’d have said the room belonged to him. At first he seemed all hair: bushy curls, bushy whiskers, a moustache, and a fine flowing beard, all purple black. Quite a flutter stirred the room: Captain Collinson was evidently somebody.
After making his bow to Lady Jenkins, he distributed his favours generally, shaking hands with this person, talking with that. At last he turned our way.
“Ah, how do you do, madame?” he said to Madame St. Vincent, his tone ceremonious. “I fear I am late.”