‘Whenever you are inclined to lead this sort
of life,’ Logotheti answered with a laugh, ’you
need only drop me a line. You shall have a beautiful
old house and a big park and a perfect colonnade of
respectabilities—and I’ll promise
not to be a bore.’
Margaret looked at him earnestly for some seconds,
and then asked a very unexpected and frivolous question,
because she simply could not help it.
‘Where did you get that tie?’
The question was strongly emphasised, for it meant
much more to her just then than he could possibly
have guessed; perhaps it meant something which was
affecting her whole life. He laughed carelessly.
’It’s better to dress like Solomon in
all his glory than to be taken for a Levantine gambler,’
he answered. ’In the days when I was simple-minded,
a foreigner in a fur coat and an eyeglass once stopped
me in the Boulevard des Italiens and asked if I could
give him the address of any house where a roulette-table
was kept! After that I took to jewels and dress!’
Margaret wondered why she could not help liking him;
and by sheer force of habit she thought that he would
make a very good-looking stage Romeo.
While she was thinking of that and smiling in spite
of his tie, the old clock in the hall below chimed
the hour, and it was a quarter to seven; and at the
same moment three men were getting out of a train
that had stopped at the Craythew station, three miles
from Lord Creedmore’s gate.
The daylight dinner was over, and the large party
was more or less scattered about the drawing-room
and the adjoining picture-gallery in groups of three
and four, mostly standing while they drank their coffee,
and continued or finished the talk begun at table.
By force of habit Margaret had stopped beside the
closed piano, and had seated herself on the old-fashioned
stool to have her coffee. Lady Maud stood beside
her, leaning against the corner of the instrument,
her cup in her hand, and the two young women exchanged
rather idle observations about the lovely day that
was over, and the perfect weather. Both were
preoccupied and they did not look at each other; Margaret’s
eyes watched Logotheti, who was half-way down the long
room, before a portrait by Sir Peter Lely, of which
he was apparently pointing out the beauties to the
elderly wife of the scientific peer. Lady Maud
was looking out at the light in the sunset sky above
the trees beyond the flower-beds and the great lawn,
for the piano stood near an open window. From
time to time she turned her head quickly and glanced
towards Van Torp, who was talking with her father at
some distance; then she looked out of the window again.
It was a warm evening; in the dusk of the big rooms
the hum of voices was low and pleasant, broken only
now and then by Van Torp’s more strident tone.
Outside it was still light, and the starlings and
blackbirds and thrushes were finishing their supper,
picking up the unwary worms and the tardy little snails,
and making a good deal of sweet noise about it.
