“Sir?” His turn and the respectful familiar angle of his head were only possible to actors of the good old school.
“The name of the charming lady who has so kindly helped to brighten up Mr. Fallaray’s week-end.”
“Oh, yes, of course.” He had never heard it before. Married then, or a widow. French. ’Um. “And she is staying with——”
“A stone’s throw from the gate in the wall, Sir. You can see the roof from this window.”
“Thanks very much, Elmer. How’s your son getting on now?”
“Very well indeed, Sir, thank you, owing to your kindness.”
“A very good fellow,—a first-rate soldier. One of our best junior officers. Not too much soda, then.”
“No, Sir.” He left the room like an elderly sun-beam.
“Good!” said George Lytham. “Get off early, hang about by the gate, intercept this young woman on her way back to Fallaray and see what her game is. That’s the idea.”
And he sat down, lit a cigarette and picked up a copy of Hood that lay open on the table. His eyes fell on some marked lines.
“Peace and rest at length have come, All the day’s long toil is past, And each heart is whispering Home, Home at last.”
And he thought of Feo whom he had seen several nights running with Arrowsmith and before that, for a series of years, with Dick, Tom and Harry. Never with Fallaray.
“Poor devil,” he thought. “He’s been too long without it. It won’t be easy to rescue him now.”
And at the gate in the wall Fallaray held Lola close in his arms and kissed her, again and again.
“My little Lola,” he said softly, “how wonderful you are,—how wonderful all this is. You had been in the air all round me for weeks. I used to see your eyes among the stars looking down at me when I left the House. I used to wake at night and feel them upon me all warm about my heart. Lots of times, like the wings of a bird, they flashed between me and my work. And the tingle of your hand that never left me ran through my veins like fire. I could have stopped dead that night at the Savoy and followed you away. And when I found you weeping in the corridor in Dover Street I was confused and bewildered because then I was old and I was fighting against you for the cause. De Brézé, de Brézé,—the name used to come to me, suddenly, like the forerunner of rain to a dried-up plant. And at last I got away and came down here, as I know now, to throw off my useless years and go back, past all the milestones on a long road, and wait for you. And then you heard my cry and opened the gate and walked among those stone figures of my life and gave me back my youth.”