The moment came at last.
He saw that she was about to leave her raised chair and to mingle with her guests. He discerned an uneasy movement around her which told him that; and just at the instant when he believed that he would be in time, he moved forward and stood before her.
She had been talking with a man who stood beside her, and did not notice his approach; did not realize that another guest had approached until he stood directly before her. Then she raised her eyes and saw him.
A person standing near them and watching her would not have noticed that her expression changed at all; but Nick Carter saw that it did.
There was just the slightest narrowing of the eyes; just an added depth to them; just the suggestion of a slight start in her attitude, unobservable to others, but plainly noted by the detective, although it endured not more than the fraction of an instant.
Then, her face beamed. A bright smile, which was also glad in its expression, illumined her eyes and her features. You would have said that she was unqualifiedly delighted to discover him there.
She did what she had not done to another guest that evening. She started from her chair and extended her hand in cordial greeting; and she followed that hand with the other one, thus signally honoring him by giving him both. He took them both, and for a moment held them, looking down into her eyes as he did so, with an expression which the spectators took to be one of intense admiration, if not more; with an expression which she must have seen, and noted, and wondered about, too, in her inmost heart.
The murmurs about them became hushed for the instant.
It seemed as if all eyes in the room were fixed upon those two; and yet no one stood quite near enough to them to hear her low-toned greeting, or his reply to it.
“You have not forgotten?” she murmured, with that bewitching smile which could not have been counterfeited by another.