He had not long to wait for her. Tripping lightly down the stairs, she joined him with a charming assumption that he would be interested to hear that her jewels were "quite safe," and she supplemented the information with the request that they should not lunch in the hotel.
"I am known here, and people stare so," she said. "Take me somewhere where we can be quiet. I have got something to say."
"Very well," he replied. "Come over to Kettner's. There won't be much of a crowd there at this time of day." And he strove hard to be polite as he steered her across the Strand, though he could have wished himself back at the Foreign Office, with no prospects and no Duke to serve, if Sybil's brave young face had not been in his mind's eye.
At the restaurant Mrs. Talmage Eglinton chose a table in a remote corner of the dining-room and devoted herself to a careful study of the _menu_. It was not till she had selected her dishes and quizzed the appearance of the other customers that she developed her plan of attack.
"You don't seem at all interested in the fact that I have something to say to you," she began, leaning back and scanning him critically. Her voluptuous style of beauty had never had any attraction for him; to-day it positively repelled.
"My worst enemies have never accused me of being curious," he answered lightly. "Nay, I am not discourteous," he protested, seeing the angry gleam in the fine eyes. "I only mean that I cannot work myself into a fever about a communication the subject of which I am ignorant of."
"Tell me," she said abruptly, "what reason you had for following me from St. Pancras to Bond Street this morning?"
Whatever her motive she was pushing him hard, and Forsyth's presence of mind failed him. He flushed and began to stammer.
[Illustration: _"I am very far from being indifferent to Mrs. Talmage Eglinton."_]
"It is useless to deny it," she cut him short. "I saw you in the cab quite plainly as I entered the shop, and my cabby had previously told me that I was being shadowed. Now, Mr. Forsyth, when a gentleman follows a lady about the streets he either does it because he means her some harm, or because--well, because he is not quite indifferent to her. Which was it in your case?"