Lady Saxondale and the young person with the stored-up wrath were met at the Gare du Nord by Mr. Savage, all smiles and good spirits. Quentin was rounding-to nicely, and there was little danger from complications. This fact coupled with the joy of seeing the girl who had been able to make him feel that life was not a shallow dream, sent him up to the two ladies with outstretched hands, a dancing heart and a greeting that brought smiles to the faces of crusty fellow-creatures who had not smiled in weeks.
With a deference due to premeditated gallantry, he shook hands first with Lady Frances. His ebullition almost swept him to the point of greeting the two maids who stood respectfully near their mistresses. Then he turned his beaming face upon the Arctic individual with the pink parasol and the palm-leaf fan.
"Awfully sorry, Lady Jane, but I really couldn't get to Ostend. You didn't have any trouble getting the right train and all that, did you?" he asked, vaguely feeling for the hand which had not been extended.
"Not in the least, Mr. Savage. We delight in traveling alone. Do you see the baroness anywhere, Frances?" Mr. Savage stared in amazement. A distinct, blighting frost settled over the whole September world and his smile lost all but its breadth. The joy left his eyes and his heart like a flash, but his lips helplessly, witlessly maintained a wide-open hospitality until long after the inspiration was dead.
"She is not here, I am afraid," responded Lady Saxondale, glancing through the hurrying crowd. "Have you seen the Baroness St. Auge, Mr. Savage? Or do you know her?"
"I can't say that I have--er--I mean don't--no, I should say both," murmured he distractedly. "Does she live here?"
"She resides in a house, not in a railway station," observed Lady Jane, with a cutting sarcasm of which she was rather proud. Lady Saxondale turned her face away and buried a convulsive smile in her handkerchief.
"I mean in Brussels," floundered Dickey, his wits in the wind. He was gazing dumbly at the profile of the slim iceberg that had so sharply sent the blast of winter across the summer of his content.
"She certainly understood that we were to come on this train, Frances. You telegraphed her," said Lady Jane, ignoring him completely. She raised herself on her dainty tiptoes, elevated her round little chin and tried to peer over the heads of a very tall and disobliging multitude. Dickey, at a loss for words, stretched his neck also in search of the woman he did not know.