“And before I met you,” she said, “I thought you a most terribly austere person.”
“So I am—at times. I have to be, Miss Lorena. I’m secretary to a very serious old gentleman, remember.”
“Yes. And that was the very reason why I threw the convenances to the winds—if there are any in the Anglo-French circle in Paris—and spoke to you—a perfect stranger.”
“You spoke because I was Mr Statham’s secretary?” he asked, somewhat puzzled.
“Yes. I wanted to speak to you privately.”
“Well, nobody can overhear us here,” he said glancing around, and noticing only a fat bonne wheeling a puny child in a gaudily-trapped perambulator.
“I wanted to speak to you regarding Mr Statham,” she said, after a long pause. “I ascertained you were coming to Paris, and waited in order to see you.”
“Why?” he asked, much surprised. The refusal of her name, her determination to conceal her identity, her friendship for Maud, and her intimate acquaintance with thing Servian, all combined to puzzle him to the verge of distraction. Who was she? What was she?
The mystery of the Doctor and his daughter was an increasing one. His pretended ignorance of certain facts had been unmasked by her in a manner which showed that she was aware of the actual truth. Was she really a secret messenger from the girl he loved so devotedly—the girl with whom he had last walked and talked with in the quietness of the London sundown in Nevern Square?
He glanced again at her pretty but mysterious face. She was a lady—refined, well-educated, with tiny white hands and well-shod feet. There was nothing of the artificial chic of the Parisienne about her, but a quiet dignity which seemed almost incongruous in one so young. Indeed, he wondered that she was allowed about in the streets of Paris alone, without a chaperone.