She turned quickly, and followed the departing guests. Raine stood bewildered, looking with contracted brow at her receding form. Hockmaster was standing at the door, his dinner napkin over his arm, a few yards away from the group of men who had remained to smoke. He opened the door a little wider for her. But she passed out like an automaton, looking neither to right nor left.
The American closed the door, and came up to Raine.
“Say, Chetwynd, can one get a liqueur brandy here?”
“The waiter will be here in a minute for orders,” replied Raine. “How are you getting on?”
“First class. Liveliest meal I've had since I dined on a burning ship sailing from New York to Cuba. Did I ever tell you the story?—My hell! It was a hot time! Have a cigar.”
“No, thanks,” replied Raine. “I must go and fetch my pipe. When I come back you can tell me.”
Deeply troubled about Katherine, he was not in the humour for Hockmaster's stories, and he seized eagerly at the excuse for being free from him for a time. He went out on to the balcony, with the intention of passing through to the drawing-room, where he expected to find Felicia. An idea had occurred to him which he was anxious to put into execution. But after passing two or three ladies, he discovered Felicia alone in the dimness of the furthest end of the balcony.
“Felicia,'” he said, calling her for the first time by her Christian name, “you are a dear good girl—you will help me if you can. Has Katherine been ill during my absence?”
The direct, frank appeal touched the girl to the heart. It seemed to raise her with one great leap in her own esteem, above all the burning shame she had suffered. Raine's vigorous, sympathetic instinct had pierced through externals to the innermost of her maidenhood. She answered his question gently.
“No. She has been quite as usual all the time. But I think she has looked sadder these last few days.”