“If it’s on business I must go, I suppose,” said Madge Vernon, rising from her chair.
“No, don’t go; stay!” said Clare, speaking with strange excitement.
As soon as she had uttered the words the visitor, Gerald Bradshaw, came in.
He was a handsome, “artistic” looking man, with longish brown hair and a vandyke beard. He was dressed in a brown suit, with a big brown silk tie. He came forward in a graceful way, perfectly at ease, and with a charming manner.
“How do you do, Mrs. Heywood?”
“I must be going,” said Madge. “Good-by, dear.”
“Oh, do stay,” whispered Clare.
“Impossible. I have to speak to-night.”
Although Madge Vernon had ignored the artist, he smiled at her and said:
“Don’t you speak by day as a rule?”