So I left the room and went upstairs, and prayed very, very earnestly for them both, and especially for Alice Fitzgerald. Oh, if she only knew where true joy was to be found!
The next day Claude arrived. I was in Evelyn's sitting-room when Alice Fitzgerald brought him in to introduce him to her. And then she turned to me.
"An old friend of yours, Claude, I believe," she said.
Claude started; he had not noticed me before. "May—Miss Lindsay," he said, colouring painfully, "I did not expect to see you here."
And then he turned the subject quickly, and began to give us an account of his journey, his Oxford adventures, and all sorts of other things, till dinner was announced.
I could see that he was not at his ease, and I was almost afraid that Alice Fitzgerald noticed it also.
I saw very little more of Claude that evening, for I always dined upstairs with Evelyn, and he spent the evening in talking politics with Sir William over the library fire.
But the next morning when I came downstairs, Claude was alone in the breakfast-room. I shook hands with him, and said "Good morning;" and then was about to leave the room again, when he called me back, and said hurriedly:
"May, what did you tell them?"
"Tell whom?" I asked.