“Ah! Spooning over Miss Finche?”
“Not a bit of it; it’s over the other one. He was with her all day to-day, and by Jove! sir, to-night they were on the balcony doing moonlight like anything.”
“Where is he? Did you leave him behind you?”
“No; we left together, but he didn’t seem to want me, and—”
“And did you see that?” I sneered.
“Why, of course I did. I wasn’t going to do The Cliffs at this hour. I prefer my cigar on the piazza here.”
I did not see either of my gentlemen the following day, save in a casual way. Seymour appeared to be picking up his good looks, and as the table to which I was relegated was within range of his quartier, I could perceive, from the flotilla of plates and dishes around him at breakfast, that his rejection by Hattie Finche had in nowise impaired his appetite.
I was in love once, twenty-five years ago, and I lived on it. A sweet cake and a glass of champagne twice a day kept me in the flesh. I wouldn’t undertake to try that “little game” again. Judging from my own symptoms at that critical period of my existence, I fairly argued that Grey Seymour had either over-lived his passion for the heiress, that he was off with the old love and on to the new, or that his mistress and he had come to an understanding after they had passed beyond my coigne of vantage. I must own I was “sairly and fairly” puzzled. The reply to my cablegram was anxiously awaited. Properly speaking, it was due upon the evening of the day on which I set the wires in motion. Allowing for the difference in time between Newport and London, say six hours and a half, and having despatched it at 9 A.M., I might fairly have reckoned on a reply that night. The Moat, however, was some little distance from Sevenoaks, so I shouldn’t be utterly disappointed were forty-eight hours to elapse ere tidings would reach me. As it was, however, the appearance of every despatch boy sent a thrill of expectation through me, and a pang of corresponding disappointment when I sought the message on the rack under the letter C.
It was upon the second morning that Price came down to breakfast arrayed in nautical costume, deep, dark, desperate blue flannel, with a superb Maréchal Niel rosebud in his button-hole, and a genuine air of festivity in his whole appearance.
“What mischief are you up to to-day?” I asked.