"Imagine it! I met an old friend to-day at my dressmaker's in Conduit Street. Not a man. A girl who was a pupil at the Convent at Gueldersdorp—or, rather, I should say a woman, for she is married."
Saxham asked:
"Is she an Englishwoman or a Colonial?"
"She is of mingled French and Dutch blood. She was a Miss Du Taine. Her father was a member of the Volksraad at Pretoria. He controls large interests on the Rand, and has an estate near Johannesburg. She is married to an English gentleman. He is very rich, and has a title. She told it me, but I have forgotten it. She asked me to drive home and lunch with her...." She hesitated. "I did not want to go," she said.
"Well, and what happened then?" Saxham asked.
"I made some kind of excuse, and hailed a hansom, and drove to Lady Castleclare's. I lunched with her. She is always very kind. She thought the pearls were beautiful. But—but surely they cost you a great deal of money?"
She touched a string of the gleaming, milky things that encircled her white throat above the lace cravat. Saxham said, smiling:
"They did not cost more than I could afford to pay. I am glad you liked them. I told Marie to put them on your dressing-table, where you would be likely to see them in the morning."
"You are too good to me!" she said, with quivering lips, looking at him. Her white hand wavered in the air, as though she meant to stretch it out to him.