Page:The Plutocrat (1927).pdf/433

 She waved a hand already gloved toward the travelling bags and fur coats. "I am leaving you, my friend, you see."

"Are you? Do you think your other friend will be able to get away?"

She looked at him again, longer this time. "Let us sit down, if you please," she said; and they sat, facing each other. "What 'other friend' do you speak of?"

At that the pale young man laughed harshly. "How absurd! I met him downstairs not five minutes ago and he told me he might be leaving this afternoon—'in about an hour,' he said. He was waiting to be told. Haven't you sent him word of his good fortune yet?"

"What good fortune?" she asked, and she frowned. "Upon my word, I understand you no more than if you were speaking in Magyar, a language I haven't acquired. What do you mean to be saying to me? Who is it you saw downstairs?"

"Merely the man you came all this distance to meet."

At that, the faintest pinkness in the world overspread her composed features. "Why do you say such things? You are angry, my dear."