Coffee was brought to the pair who were chattering merrily, when the stranger, suddenly rising to pass back into the lounge, struck the little table accidentally and the coffee was spilled.
“Oh!” he exclaimed, with exquisite politeness, in a well-modulated and refined voice. “Do please forgive me! It was most clumsy of me, and I apologise to you both.”
Then seeing the waiter in the vicinity, he ordered two more coffees in the same breath.
“Nothing!” laughed Falconer. “It was only an accident! These tables are all gingerbread things. They are always very shaky.”
“Well,” said the stranger, “my sole consolation is that none of it went on the lady’s dress. Coffee stains badly, you know.”
“No. It’s quite all right!” declared Sylvia pleasantly.
And then they began to chat. The stranger told them that he had motored down from London just for a breath of air.
“I’m going abroad—to China—in about a month’s time. I expect to be away several years. So I want to see all I can of our dear old England before I go.”
For half an hour they gossiped of motors, of good and indifferent roads, and of hotels as known by motorists within a couple of hundred miles of London.
At half-past three Sylvia suggested they should start back home; therefore, they parted from their pleasant chance acquaintance, leaving him still smoking in the porch-like lounge.