“Now that’s what I call really flattering. I can’t be so absolutely unrecognisable if she knew me.”
“Did you guess she was on board?”
“Saw her come on deck before you did.”
“But you haven’t spoken to her.” There was wonder in the younger man’s voice.
“How was I to know that she would recognise me? And when you found her out, I hadn’t the heart to disturb you.”
“She sent me to fetch you to her now, though.”
Wylie laughed at the faint sigh that accompanied the words. “Rough on you,” he said. “Well, you’re not changed at any rate—not a day older. Come, don’t let us keep her waiting.”
They crossed the deck towards a lady in a noticeably well-cut tweed travelling-coat and hat, who sat alone, protected by the presence at a little distance of an elderly maid of the most rigid type of respectability. She looked up eagerly, almost anxiously, as Wylie approached, but the blue eyes met hers with curiosity rather than interest. The seven years since their last meeting had worked no such doleful change in Zoe Teffany as in the man who had once loved her; she had worn well, as women say of one another. She was a woman not to be passed over, alert, keenly interested in life, though an occasional fugitive look of wistfulness betrayed that life had not brought her all she had once confidently expected from it. She shook hands heartily with Wylie.
“Now I really believe in this adventure,” she said. “With you our old party is complete.”
“Your brother and his wife are here?” asked Wylie.