"What do you think of her?" asked the delighted Tommy, after he had given his friend a decent time for his inspection.
Tommy was a man whose friends had got into the habit of smiling at him, even when they agreed with him. Spencer smiled at him quite as often as any of his acquaintance, but at this moment he was perfectly grave.
"You are quite right, old man, this time," he said quietly. "She is really beautiful, and her carriage is splendid. She looks like a young Empress—or, rather, she fulfils one's idea of what a young Empress should be."
Tommy beamed. He drank in the words of unstinted praise like wine. The little blue eyes, usually devoid of expression, seemed suffused with a soft emotion. There was something pathetic in his devotion to this radiant young woman who looked like a youthful Empress.
"And she is as good and sweet as she looks," he murmured in a voice that he could not keep steady. "When she talks to you seriously and lets you know what she really thinks and feels, by gad, Spencer, it makes a battered old worldling like myself feel unworthy to be in her presence. For she has a beautiful soul and mind as well as a beautiful body."
Spencer could only look sympathetic. Poor little Tommy, he certainly seemed to talk like a lover. And what did Miss Keane think of it all? She must have more than a mere tolerance for him, or she would not have allowed him those peeps into her mind and soul to which he alluded with such unrestrained rapture.
It was some time before Esmond's intense gaze attracted the attention of the party, and when it did, he was rewarded with a most affable smile from Mrs. L'Estrange, and one of quite pronounced friendliness from Miss Keane. The Colonel also bestowed a genial nod.
After a pause, Tommy spoke somewhat ruefully. "I'm afraid this rather upsets our little plans. Mrs. L'Estrange is a most conscientious diner: she will be here, at the lowest calculation, for an hour and a half, counting the coffee and cigarettes. They won't be back at the flat under a couple. You wouldn't care to wait so long."
He looked rather wistfully at his companion. He, for his own part, would have waited half the night.
"Don't let us commit ourselves, old man, but await events. We haven't finished our dinner yet, and the service is deucedly slow. We can put in a lot more time. You can pay your respects at a fitting moment, and perhaps they will ask us to their table. I must confess I should like to see Miss Keane at closer quarters, and talk to her. Although I don't expect she will reveal as much to me as she does to you."