At all events, her face was pale as a lily petal held against the light, her sweet lips drooped wistfully at the corners, and I thought she spoke but seldom. The smile with which she had greeted me had been fleeting, and even as it lingered there had been an expression in her large soft eyes which it galled me that I should be too dull to read. It had seemed to say, "Something has happened since I saw you last. Why did you offer me your friendship, when it was too late to give me any help?"
No doubt, I told myself, this was but a morbid fancy of mine. If I could have known the true motive of the glance I should have interpreted what appeared like unutterable sadness as mere boredom.
Instead of the earnest appeal or reproach, I imagined at most the eyes intended to say, "I have talked long enough with these stupid men, none of whom have minds above cricket or football. Relieve me of them, please."
But I had not even been able to do that, though I had tried, for as I attempted to oust the boldest of the group in my own favour, Lady Tressidy had swept across the room, with sharp rustling of silken linings and satin skirts, to claim me for an introduction to "an old friend who had longed for years to know me."
At length, however, as I said, I had contrived an escape, and was finding my way towards Karine, when, before I had reached her, I saw her start, staring past me with a white, frozen look on her face that for the moment blotted out much of its innocent youthfulness and beauty.
She was gazing in the direction of the door, with dark, dilated eyes, and lips tightly closed in a line of scarlet that faded to palest pink.
It was as though into the midst of the gossip and laughter and brilliant light had crept a spectre which she alone could see. Some such look I had seen in the eyes of a dove which had been offered up as food for a constrictor. Involuntarily I turned and glanced behind me.
No name had been announced, though I had heard the opening and closing of the door, and now, as I faced round in that direction, I saw that Sir Walter Tressidy and Carson Wildred had come in together.
Evidently this was not Wildred's first entrance, for like Sir Walter, he had neither hat nor stick. He moved forward by his companion's side with the unmistakably-assured air of the friend of the house, and I instinctively understood that he had lunched with the Tressidys, and since that time had been closeted on some business of importance with his host.
Unreasoningly, I hated him for his privileges. With more of reason, I hated him because I believed the look I had seen for a single instant on Karine Cunningham's face was connected with his presence.