第11章 CHAPTER VI(2)

"Well," she said, "I have large discretionary powers. We have a very strong branch over on this side, but I would very much rather induce you to stay here without applying to them."

"And the inducements?" he asked.

She took a cigarette from a box which stood on the table and lit one.

"Well," she said, "I might appeal to your hospitality, might I not?

I am in a strange country which you have made your home. I want to be shown round. Do you remember dining with me one night at the Ambassador's? It was very hot, even for Paris, and we drove afterwards in the Bois. Ask me to dine with you here, won't you?

I have never quite forgotten the last time."

Mr. Sabin laughed softly, but with undisguised mirth.

"Come," he said, "this is an excellent start. You are to play the Circe up to date, and I am to be beguiled. How ought I to answer you? I do remember the Ambassador's, and I do remember driving down the Bois in your victoria, and holding - I believe I am right - your hand. You have no right to disturb those charming memories by attempting to turn them into bathos."

She blew out a little cloud of tobacco smoke, and watched it thoughtfully.

"Ah!" she remarked. "I wonder who is better at that, you or I?

I may not be exactly a sentimental person, but you - you are a flint."

"On the contrary," Mr. Sabin assured her earnestly, "I am very much in love with my wife."

"Dear me!" she exclaimed. "You carry originality to quixoticism.

I have met several men before in my life whom I have suspected of such a thing, but I never heard any one confess it. This little domestic contretemps -is then, I presume, disagreeable to you!"

"To the last degree," Mr. Sabin asserted. "So much so that I leave for England by the Campania."

She shook her head slowly.

"I wouldn't if I were you."

"Why not?"

Lady Carey threw away the end of her cigarette, and looked for a moment thoughtfully at her long white fingers glittering with rings.

Then she began to draw on her gloves.

"Well, in the first place," she said, "Lucille will have no time to spare for you. You will be de trop in decidedly an uncomfortable position. You wouldn't find London at all a good place to live in just now, even if you ever got there - which I am inclined to doubt.

And secondly, here am I - "

"Circe!" he murmured.

"Waiting to be entertained, in a strange country, almost friendless.

I want to be shown everything, taken everywhere. And I am dying to see your home at Lenox. I do not think your attitude towards me in the least hospitable."

"Come, you are judging me very quickly," he declared. "What opportunities have I had?"

"What opportunities can there be if you sail by the Campania?"

"You might dine with me to-night at least."

"Impossible! The Dalkeiths have a party to meet me. Come too, won't you? They love dukes - even French ones."

He shook his head.

"There is no attraction for me in a large party," he answered. "I am getting to an age when to make conversation in return for a dinner seems scarcely a fair exchange."

"From your host's point of view, or yours?"

"From both! Besides, one's digestion suffers."

"You are certainly getting old," she declared. "Come, I must go.

You haven't been a bit nice to me. When shall I see you again?"

"It is," he answered, "for you to say."

She looked at him for a moment thoughtfully.

"Supposing," she said, "that I cried off the yacht race to-day.

Would you take me out to lunch?"

He smiled.

"My dear lady," he said, "it is for Circe to command - and for me to obey."

"And you'll come and have tea with me afterwards at the Waldorf?"

"That," Mr. Sabin declared, "will add still further to my happiness."

"Will you call for me, then - and where shall we have lunch, and at what time? I must go and develop a headache at once, or that tiresome Dalkeith boy will be pounding at my door."

"I will call for you at the Waldorf at half-past one," Mr. Sabin said. "Unless you have any choice, I will take you to a little place downtown where we can imagine ourselves back on the Continent, and where we shall be spared the horror of green corn."

"Delightful," she murmured, buttoning her glove. "Then you shall take me for a drive to Fifth Avenue, or to see somebody's tomb, and my woman shall make some real Russian tea for us in my sitting-room. Really, I think I'm doing very well for the first day. Is the spell beginning to work?"

"Hideously," he assured her. "I feel already that the only thing I dread in life are these two hours before luncheon."

She nodded.

"That is quite as it should be. Don't trouble to come down with me. I believe that Dalkeith pere is hanging round somewhere, and in view of my headache perhaps you had better remain in the background for the moment. At one-thirty, then!"

Mr. Sabin smiled as she passed out of the room, and lit a cigarette.

"I think," he said to himself, "that the arrival of Felix is opportune."