After that he stayed on, not hoping, but merely because he liked her. Later he remained because of a vague instinct that he might as well be on hand while Strelsa went through the phase with Langly Sprowl. But he was a wise man, and weeks ago he had seen the inevitable outcome. Also he had divined Quarren's influence in the atmosphere, had watched for it, sensed it, seen it very gradually materialise in a score of acts and words of which Strelsa herself was totally unconscious.
Then, too, the afternoon before, he had encountered Sprowl riding furiously with reeking spurs, after his morning's gallop with Strelsa; and he had caught a glimpse of the man's face; and that was enough.
So there was really nothing to keep him in America any longer. He wanted to get back to his own kind—into real life again, among people of real position and real elegance, where live topics were discussed, where live things were attempted or accomplished, where whatever was done, material or immaterial, was done thoroughly and well.
There was not one thing in America, now, to keep him there—except a warm and kindly affection for his little friend Chrysos Lacy with whom he had been thrown so constantly at Witch-Hollow.
Strolling across the lawn, he thought of her with warm gratitude. In her fresh and unspoiled youth he had found relief from a love unreturned, a cool, sweet antidote to passion, a balm for loneliness most exquisite and delightful.
The very perfection of comradeship it had been, full of charming surprises as well as a rest both mental and physical. For Chrysos made few demands on his intellect—that is, at first she had made very few. Later—within the past few weeks, he remembered now his surprise to find how much there really was to the young girl—and that perhaps her age and inexperience alone marked any particular intellectual chasm between them.
Thinking of these things he sauntered on across country, and after a while came to the grounds of the Ledwith place, wondering a little that a note from Mrs. Sprowl the evening before should have requested him to present himself at so early an hour.
A man took his card, returned presently saying that Mrs. Ledwith had not yet risen, but that Mrs. Sprowl would receive him.
Conducted to the old lady's apartments he was ushered into a dressing-room done in pastel tints, and which hideously set forth the colouring and proportions of Mrs. Sprowl in lace bed-attire, bolstered up in a big cane-backed chair.
"I'm ill," she said hoarsely; "I have been ill all night—sitting here because I can't lie down. I'd strangle if I lay down."