For three months he had existed in constant uncertainty, until one warm evening at Scarborough—where she and her father were staying at the Grand—while they were alone together in the sloping garden of the Spa he summoned courage to tell her the secret of his heart, and to his overwhelming joy found that his passion was reciprocated. Thus had they become lovers.
As Max rightly guessed, he had feared for the present to tell Dr Petrovitch the truth lest he should object and a parting be the result. His position was not what he wished it to be. As secretary to the eccentric old financier, his salary was an adequate one, but not sufficient to provide Maud with a home such as her own. He therefore intended in a little while to tell old Statham the truth, and to ask for more. And until he had done so, he hesitated to demand of the Doctor his daughter’s hand.
Together they strolled slowly on, chatting as lovers will. At the bottom of Fopstone Road they continued round the crescent of Philbeach Gardens, along Warwick Road, and crossing Old Brompton Road, entered that maze of quiet, eminently respectable streets in the neighbourhood of Redcliffe Square, strolling slowly on in the falling gloom.
“Do you know, darling,” he exclaimed at last, “I wanted to see you very particularly this evening, because I am leaving London to-night for Servia.”
“For Servia!” she cried, halting and fixing her great eyes upon his in quick surprise.
“Yes.”
Her countenance fell.
“Then you—you are leaving me?”
“It is imperative, my darling,” he said, in a low, tender voice, taking her hand in his. He wished to kiss her sweet lips, but there in the open street such action was impossible. Courtship in our grimy, matter-of-fact London has many drawbacks, even though every house contains its life-romance and every street holds its man or woman with a broken heart.
“But you never told me,” she complained. “You’ve left it until the last minute. Do you start from Charing Cross to-night?”