"I should never have sought you
out, for the reason I have given you, but since we have met you will not
refuse me your friendship? You will let me come and see you?"
She laughed softly.
"I shall be very unhappy if you do not. Come to-morrow afternoon to tea
at five o'clock. There will be no one else there, and we can talk of
those times on the beach at Etaples. You were rather a pessimist in
those days."
"It seems ages ago," he replied. "To-day, at any rate, I feel
differently. I knew when I glanced at Lady Amesbury's card this morning
that something was going to happen. I went to that stupid garden party
all agog for adventure."
"Am I the adventure?" she asked lightly.
He made no immediate answer, turning his head, however, and studying her
with a queer, impersonal deliberation. She was wearing a smoke-coloured
muslin gown and a black hat with gracefully arranged feathers. For a
moment the weariness had passed from her face and she was a very
beautiful woman. Her features were delicately shaped, her eyes rather
deep-set. She had a long, graceful neck, and resting upon her throat,
fastened by a thin platinum chain, was a single sapphire. There was about
her just that same delicate femininity, that exquisite aroma of
womanliness and tender sexuality which had impressed him so much upon
their first meeting.
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