It was not a very exalted note on which to pitch the conversation, but it had the merit of giving each of them a little more time to collect themselves.
"This is.... I wasn't expecting you!" said Wally.
"I wasn't expecting you!" said Jill.
There was another pause, in which Wally, apparently examining her last words and turning them over in his mind, found that they did not square with his preconceived theories.
"You weren't expecting me?"
"I certainly was not!"
"But ... but you knew I lived here?"
Jill shook her head. Wally reflected for an instant, and then put his finger, with a happy inspiration, on the very heart of the mystery.
"Then how on earth did you get here?"
He was glad he had asked that. The sense of unreality which had come to him in the first startling moment of seeing her and vanished under the influence of logic had returned as strong as ever. If she did not know he lived in this place, how in the name of everything uncanny had she found her way here? A momentary wonder as to whether all this was not mixed up with telepathy and mental suggestion and all that sort of thing came to him. Certainly he had been thinking of her all the time since their parting at the Savoy Hotel that night three weeks and more back.... No, that was absurd. There must be some sounder reason for her presence. He waited for her to give it.