‘I will go to the waiting-room for a moment,’ whispered Viviette hurriedly; and, loosing her hand from his arm, she pulled down her veil and vanished inside the building.
The stranger came forward and raised his hat. He was a slightly built and apparently town-bred man of twenty-eight or thirty; his manner of address was at once careless and conciliatory.
‘I am greatly concerned at what I have done,’ he said. ‘I sincerely trust that your wife’—but observing the youthfulness of Swithin, he withdrew the word suggested by the manner of Swithin towards Lady Constantine—‘I trust the young lady was not seriously cut?’
‘I trust not,’ said Swithin, with some vexation.
‘Where did the lash touch her?’
‘Straight down her cheek.’
‘Do let me go to her, and learn how she is, and humbly apologize.’
‘I’ll inquire.’
He went to the ladies’ room, in which Viviette had taken refuge. She met him at the door, her handkerchief to her cheek, and Swithin explained that the driver of the phaeton had sent to make inquiries.
‘I cannot see him!’ she whispered. ‘He is my brother Louis! He is, no doubt, going on by the train to my house. Don’t let him recognize me! We must wait till he is gone.’