Accordingly, he was fairly satisfied with himself when, after a quarter of an hour’s walk, he opened the garden gate of a large house standing in its own grounds. He walked up the drive humming an air. He rang, was admitted, conducted across a luxuriously carpeted hall, up a broad staircase, into the drawing-room.
“Mr. Colman, miss.”
The servant withdrew and shut the door. A girl rose from a low chair by the fire and advanced with quick steps to meet him.
“Oh, how late you are—no, you couldn’t help it. You told me. But the evening has been so long—waiting for you.”
“I got away as soon as I could. You see, I had promised. If your note had come yesterday, instead of this morning——-”
“I only knew last night that father was going out of town. It seemed too good a chance of having you all to myself. Oh, I am so glad you’ve come. It was good of you.”
“By no means,” he said, with a mock bow. “Don’t you think it’s a pleasure I’ve been looking forward to all day long?”
“I don’t—if you express yourself in that sarcastic way,” she answered, reseating herself.
Her voice was deep and rich, and she affected a lazy utterance—half aware that it might warm the blood of the man she was addressing. It did. He had been irritably conscious of its seductiveness in Irene’s dining-room; of the seductiveness, too, of her sensuous grace that had first caught his imagination. “You are a witch, Minna,” he said, admiringly.
The echo in his ear of the threadbare commonplace sounded an ironical note. It pleased the girl, however.