She laughed.
"It looks as though you didn't want to see me," she remarked.
"If you didn't, why are you here?"
"I suppose I did want to see you," he replied. "Anyhow, I was
lonely. I wanted to talk to some one. I walked all the way up
here from Chelsea."
"You have something to tell me?" she suggested.
"There was something," he admitted. "I thought perhaps you ought
to know. I had supper with your father last night. We talked
about you."
She started as though he had struck her; her face was suddenly
pale and anxious.
"Are you serious, Leonard?" she asked. "My father?"
He nodded.
"I am sorry," he said. "I ought not to have blundered. it out
like that. I forgot that you--you were not seeing anything of
him."
"How did you meet him?"
"By accident," he answered. "I was sitting alone up in the
balcony at Imano's, and he wanted my table because he could see
you from there, so we shared it, and then we began talking. I
knew who he was, of course; I had seen him in your sister's room.
He told me that he had engaged the table for every night this
week."
She looked across the road.
"I can't go out with those people now," she declared. "Wait here
for me."
She went back to her friends and talked to them for a moment or
two. Tavernake could hear Grier's protesting voice and
Beatrice's light laugh. Evidently they were trying uselessly to
persuade her to change her mind. Soon she came back to him.
"I am sorry," he said reluctantly.
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