It was a cryptic speech. In another it might have signified a spitefulness unthinkable in Sylvia Armytage; therefore it puzzled him very deeply. He stood silent, wondering what precisely she might mean, and thus in silence they continued for a spell. Then slowly she turned and the blaze of light from the windows fell about her irradiantly. She was rather pale, and her eyes were of a suspiciously excessive brightness. And again she made use of the phrase:
“Una will be waiting for you.”
Yet, as before, he stood silent and immovable, considering her, questioning himself, searching her face and his own soul. All he saw was that rope of shimmering pearls.
“And after all, as yourself suggested, it is possible that others may be waiting for me,” she added presently.
Instantly he was crestfallen and contrite. “I sincerely beg your pardon, Miss Armytage,” and with a pang of which his imperturbable exterior gave no hint he proffered her his arm.
She took it, barely touching it with her finger-tips, and they re-entered the ante-room.
“When do you think that you will be leaving?” he asked her gently.
There was a note of harshness in the voice that answered him.
“I don’t know yet. But very soon. The sooner the better, I think.”
And then the sleek and courtly Samoval, detaching from, seeming to materialise out of, the glittering throng they had entered, was bowing low before her, claiming her attention. Knowing her feelings, Tremayne would not have relinquished her, but to his infinite amazement she herself slipped her fingers from his scarlet sleeve, to place them upon the black one that Samoval was gracefully proffering, and greeted Samoval with a gay raillery as oddly in contrast with her grave demeanour towards the captain as with her recent avowal of detestation for the Count.