“I can’t think where father can be!” exclaimed the girl presently, rising and handing her companion the glass box of cigarettes. “Look! it is already one o’clock, and he promised most faithfully he would be back to wish the Wheelers farewell.”
“Oh! he may have been delayed—met somebody and gone to the club perhaps,” Austin suggested. “You know how terribly busy he is.”
“I know, of course—but he always rings me up if he is delayed, so that I need not sit up for him, and Grant goes to bed.”
“Well, I don’t see any necessity for uneasiness,” declared the young man. “He’ll be here in a moment, no doubt. But if he is not here very soon I’ll have to be getting along to Half Moon Street.”
Through the next ten minutes the eyes of both were constantly upon the clock until, at a quarter-past one, Wingate rose, excusing himself, and saying:
“If I were you I shouldn’t wait up any longer. You’ve had a long day. Grant will wait up for your father.”
“The good old fellow is just as tired as I am—perhaps more so,” remarked the girl sympathetically. And then the pair descended to the hall, where Sheila helped him on with his coat.
“Well—good-night—and don’t worry,” Austin urged cheerfully as their hands met. The contact sent a thrill through him. Yes. No woman had ever stirred his soul in that manner before. He loved her—yes, loved her honestly, truly, devotedly, and at that instant he knew, by some strange intuition, that their lives were linked by some mysterious inexplicable bond. He could not account for it, but it was so. He knew it.
By this time Grant had arrived in the hall to let out Miss Sheila’s visitor, and indeed he had opened the door for him, when at that same moment a taxi, turning in from Curzon Street, slowly drew up at the kerb before the house.
The driver alighted quickly and, crossing hurriedly to Austin, said: