"I haven't seen you to speak to since that little note of yours."
A very faint colour rose in his faded cheeks.
"After Miss Schley's first night?" he murmured.
His yellow fingers moved restlessly.
"Do you know that your son told me you would write?" she continued.
She was leaning back in her chair, half hidden by the curtain of the box.
"Leo!"
Sir Donald's voice was almost sharp and startling.
"How should he--you spoke about me then?"
There was a flash of light in his pale, almost colourless eyes.
"I wondered where you had gone, and he said you would write next day."
"That was all?"
"Why, how suspicious you are!"
She spoke banteringly.
"Suspicious! No--but Leo does not understand me very well. I was rather
old when he was born, and I have never been able to be much with him. He
was educated in England, and my duties of course lay abroad."
He paused, looking at her and moving his thin white moustache. Then, in
an uneasy voice, he added:
"You must not take my character altogether from Leo."
"Nor you mine altogether from Miss Schley," said Lady Holme.
She scarcely knew why she said it. She thought herself stupid, ridiculous
almost, for saying it. Yet she could not help speaking. Perhaps she
relied on Sir Donald's age. Or perhaps--but who knows why a woman is
cautious or incautious in moments the least expected? God guides her,
perhaps, or the devil--or merely a bottle imp.
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