When she had got all the information that was wanted she had still an hour or two before her. She thought she would spend the time wandering about the streets of Brussels. The animation and life of the cheerful city—where all the people except the market-women are young—pleased her. It was long since she had seen any of the cheerfulness that belongs to a busy street. She walked slowly along, up one street and down another, looking into the shops. She made two or three little purchases. She looked into a place filled with Tauchnitz Editions, and bought two or three books. She was beginning to think that she was tired and had better make her way back to the station, when suddenly she remembered the post-office and her instructions to Fanny Mere.
"I wonder," she said, "if Fanny has written to me."
She asked the way to the post-office. There was time if she walked quickly.
At the Poste Restante there was a letter for her—more than a letter, a parcel, apparently a book.
She received it and hurried back to the station.
In the train she amused herself with looking through the leaves of her new books. Fanny Mere's letter she would read after dinner.
At dinner they actually talked. Lord Harry was excited with the prospect of going back to the world. He had enjoyed his hermitage, he said, quite long enough. Give him the society of his fellow-creatures. "Put me among cannibals," he said, "and I should make friends with them. But to live alone—it is the devil! To-morrow we begin our new flight."
After dinner he lit his cigar, and went on chattering about the future. Iris remembered the packet she had got at the post-office, and opened it. It contained a small manuscript book filled with writing and a brief letter. She read the letter, laid it down, and opened the book.