I do not know why I have stayed
so long."
She held out her fingers.
"You are a very sudden person," she declared, smiling at his
discomfiture. "If you must go!"
He scarcely touched her hand, anxious only to get away. And then
the door opened and a man of somewhat remarkable appearance
entered the room with the air of a privileged person. He was
oddly dressed, with little regard to the fashion of the moment.
His black coat was cut after the mode of a past generation, his
collar was of the type affected by Gladstone and his fellow-
statesmen, his black bow was arranged with studied negligence and
he showed more frilled white shirt-front than is usual in the
daytime. His silk hat was glossy but broad-brimmed; his masses
of gray hair, brushed back from a high, broad forehead, gave him
almost a patriarchal aspect. His features were large and fairly
well-shaped, but his mouth was weak and his cheeks lacked the
color of a healthy life. Tavernake stared at him open-mouthed.
He, for his part, looked at Tavernake as he might have looked at
some strange wild animal.
"A thousand apologies, dear Elizabeth!" be exclaimed. "I
knocked, but I imagine that you did not hear me. Knowing your
habits, it did not occur to me that you might be engaged at this
hour of the morning."
"It is a young man from the house agent's," she announced
indifferently, "come to see me about a flat."
"In that case," he suggested amiably, "I am, perhaps, not in the
way.
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