“Perhaps there has been some mistake,”
he suggested quietly. “My English is sometimes
not very good. I would not dream of trying to
rob the young lady. I have not lost any pocketbook.
I have not descended lower down in the hotel than
this floor.”
Van Teyl waved him away, accepted his farewell salutation,
and waited until the door was closed.
“Look here, Pamela,” he protested, turning
almost appealingly towards her, “my brain wasn’t
made for this sort of thing. What in thunder does
it all mean?”
Pamela looked at the fragments of paper upon the floor
and sank back in an easy chair.
“Jimmy,” she confided, “I don’t
know.”
Pamela opened her eyes the next morning upon a distinctly
pleasing sight. At the foot of her bed was an
enormous basket of pink carnations. On the counterpane
by her side lay a smaller cluster of twelve very beautiful
dark red Gloire de Dijon roses. Attached to these
latter was a note.
“When did these flowers come, Leah?” Pamela
asked the maid who was moving about the room.
“An hour ago, madam,” the girl told her.
“Read the name on the card,” Pamela directed,
pointing to the mass of pink blossoms.
“Mr. Oscar H. Fischer,” the girl read
out, “with respectful compliments.”
Pamela smiled.
“He doesn’t know, then,” she murmured
to herself. “Get my bath ready, Leah.”
The maid disappeared into the inner room. Pamela
tore open the note attached to the roses by her side,
and read it slowly through:
Dear Miss Van Teyl,
I am so very sorry, but the luncheon we had half-planned
for to-day must be postponed. I have an urgent
message to go south; to inspect—but no
secrets! It’s horribly disappointing.
I hope we may meet in a few days.
Sincerely yours,
John Lutchester.
Pamela laid down the note, conscious of an indefined
but distinct sensation of disappointment. After
all, it was not so wonderful to wake up and find oneself
in New York. The sun was pleasant, the little
puffs of air which came in through the window across
the park, delightful and exhilarating, yet something
had gone out of the day. Accustomed to self-analysis,
she asked herself swiftly—what? It
was, without a doubt, something to do with Lutchester’s
departure. She tried to face the question of
her disappointment. Was it possible to feel any
real interest in a man who preferred a Government
post to the army at such a time, and who had brought
his golf clubs out to America? Her imagination
for a moment revolved around the problem of his apparently
uninteresting and yet, in some respects, contradictory
personality. Was it really her fancy or had she,
every now and then, detected behind that flamboyant
manner traces of something deeper and more serious,
something which seemed to indicate a life and aims
