“Are there any countries in the world left which are strange to so great a traveler as Lady Muriel Carey?” he said. “The papers here have been full of your wonderful adventures in South Africa.”
She laughed.
“Everything shockingly exaggerated, of course,” she declared. “I have really been plagued to death since I got here with interviewers, and that sort of person. I wonder if you know how glad I am to see you again?”
“You are very kind, indeed,” he said. “Certainly there was no one whom I expected less to see over here. You have come for the yacht races, I suppose?”
She looked at him with a faint smile and raised eyebrows.
“Come,” she said, “shall we lie to one another? Is it worth while? Candour is so much more original.”
“Candour by all means then, I beg,” he answered.
“I have come over with the Dalkeiths, ostensibly to see the yacht races. Really I have come to see you.”
Mr. Sabin bowed.
“I am delightfully flattered,” he murmured.
“I don’t exactly mean for the pleasure of gazing into your face once more,” she continued. “I have a mission!”
Mr. Sabin looked up quickly.
“Great heavens! You, too!” he exclaimed.
She nodded.
“Why not?” she asked coolly. “I have been in it for years, you know, and when I got back from South Africa everything seemed so terribly slow that I begged for some work to do.”
“And they sent you here—to me?”
“Yes,” she answered, “and I was here also a few weeks ago, but you must not ask me anything about that.”
Mr. Sabin’s eyebrows contracted, his face darkened. She shrank a little away from him.
“So it is you who have robbed me of her, then,” he said slowly. “Yes, the description fits you well enough. I ask you, Lady Carey, to remember the last time when chance brought you and me together. Have I deserved this from you?”
She made a little gesture of impotence.
“Do be reasonable!” she begged. “What choice had I?”
He looked at her steadfastly.
“The folly of women—of clever women such as you,” he said, “is absolutely amazing. You have deliberately made a slave of yourself—”
“One must have distraction,” she murmured.
“Distraction! And so you play at this sort of thing. Is it worth while?”
Her eyes for a moment clouded over with weariness.
“When one has filled the cup of life to the brim for many years,” she said, “what remains that is worth while?”
He bowed.
“You are a young woman,” he said. “You should not yet have learned to speak with such bitterness. As for me—well, I am old indeed. In youth and age the affections claim us. I am approaching my second childhood.”
She laughed derisively, yet not unkindly. “What folly!” she exclaimed.
“You are right,” he admitted. “I suppose it is the fault of old associations.”
“In a few minutes,” she said, smiling at him, “we should have become sentimental.”
“I,” he admitted, “was floundering already.”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“You talk as though sentiment were a bog.”
“There have been worse similes,” he declared.
“How horrid! And do you know, sir, for all your indignation you have not yet even inquired after your wife’s health.”
“I trust,” he said, “that she is well.”
“She is in excellent health.”
“Your second visit to this country,” he remarked, “follows very swiftly upon your first.”
She nodded.
“I am here,” she said, “on your account.”
“You excite my interest,” he declared. “May I know your mission?”
“I have to remind you of your pledge,” she said, “to assure you of Lucille’s welfare, and to prevent your leaving the country.”
“Marvelous!” he exclaimed, with a slight mocking smile. “And may I ask what means you intend to employ to keep me here?”
“Well,” she said, “I have large discretionary powers. We have a very strong branch over on this side, but I would very much rather induce you to stay here without applying to them.”
“And the inducements?” he asked.
She took a cigarette from a box which stood on the table and lit one.
“Well,” she said, “I might appeal to your hospitality, might I not? I am in a strange country which you have made your home. I want to be shown round. Do you remember dining with me one night at the Ambassador’s? It was very hot, even for Paris, and we drove afterwards in the Bois. Ask me to dine with you here, won’t you? I have never quite forgotten the last time.”
Mr. Sabin laughed softly, but with undisguised mirth.
“Come,” he said, “this is an excellent start. You are to play the Circe up to date, and I am to be beguiled. How ought I to answer you? I do remember the Ambassador’s, and I do remember driving down the Bois in your victoria, and holding—I believe I am right—your hand. You have no right to disturb those charming memories by attempting to turn them into bathos.”
She blew out a little cloud of tobacco smoke, and watched it thoughtfully.
“Ah!” she remarked. “I wonder who is better at that, you or I? I may not be exactly a sentimental person, but you—you are a flint.”
“On the contrary,” Mr. Sabin assured her earnestly, “I am very much in love with my wife.”
“Dear me!” she exclaimed. “You carry originality to quixoticism. I have met several men before in my life whom I have suspected of such a thing, but I never heard any one confess it. This little domestic contretemps is then, I presume, disagreeable to you!”
“To the last degree,” Mr. Sabin asserted. “So much so that I leave for England by the Campania.”
She shook her head slowly.
“I wouldn’t if I were you.”
“Why not?”
Lady Carey threw away the end of her cigarette, and looked for a moment thoughtfully at her long white fingers glittering with rings. Then she began to draw on her gloves.
“Well, in the first place,” she said, “Lucille will have no time to spare for you. You will be de trop in decidedly an uncomfortable position. You wouldn’t find London at all a good place to live in just now, even if you ever got there—which I am inclined to doubt. And secondly, here am I—”
“Circe!” he murmured.
“Waiting to be entertained, in a strange country, almost friendless. I want to be shown everything, taken everywhere. And I am dying to see your home at Lenox. I do not think your attitude towards me in the least hospitable.”
“Come, you are judging me very quickly,” he declared. “What opportunities