But a very different apparition stood there. The girl in the Mercury cap. Not so blithe as the day before--eager still, but wistful.
"Why, my _dear_ Nan!" Miss von Schwarzenberg said again, precisely as she had before. "I told you I would come for you!"
"Yes, in the afternoon, you said. But I couldn't wait. Don't look like that, dearest." She had lowered her voice as Miss von Schwarzenberg joined her in the lobby. "I began to be afraid I'd only dreamed that you were so near again."
Miss von Schwarzenberg answered in a voice lower still. Napier gathered up Sir William's letters and his own. As he went with them into the library, Miss von Schwarzenberg turned hastily. "I'll just go and see if Lady McIntyre can spare me two minutes. I'll meet you out there, by the clump of firs."
"All right," the girl said quietly, and turned away.
Miss von Schwarzenberg knew as well as Napier did that Lady McIntyre was in the breakfast-room looking at the illustrated papers over her second cup of coffee. But Miss von Schwarzenberg hurried upstairs.
Ordinarily Napier would have sat reading and answering his own letters till what time Sir William should come in from his ride. To-day he stood near the library fire--still seeing that face under the cap. What had the von Schwarzenberg been saying to her? It wasn't at all the face she had brought here the evening before. And if Julian Grant had been struck by the happy faith in its yesterday aspect, Napier found something rather touching in the hurt steadfastness it showed to-day.
"It isn't the same face," Napier repeated to himself; and before he had at all made up his mind what he should do next, he was going through the hall.
There she was pulling off her gloves, and holding her hands over the fire.
"It _is_ cold," Napier said, and he seized the poker. The flames sprang up and danced on the girl's face.
"Oh, _my_! How nice! You are the private secretary, aren't you?"
"What makes you think that?" he asked, a little on his dignity.
"Well, the other one was 'Julian,' wasn't he?"
Napier didn't much like this familiarity with a Christian name on the part of a stranger. "Yes. I'm Gavan Napier."
"I'm glad to meet you, Mr. Napier." She held out her hand.
He said nothing, only glanced round the hall in an undecided fashion after releasing her hand, and then put his letters down on the nearest chair. "I hope I'm not in your way," the girl said. "You see, I don't know at all what private secretaries do. You are the first one I ever met."