The younger lady perceived him standing in the shadowy doorway, and came toward him.
"Mr. Pevensey?" she began in a voice of cool inquiry. Then she stopped aghast; and the colour flamed into her face. "_You!_" she exclaimed in a voice too low to reach the older woman's ears. "Oh, I didn't know--I never suspected it might be you!"
Garth was conscious of a complicated feeling of irritation, a kind of jealousy of himself. "Why did they send for me, if they didn't know it was me?" was his thought.
"What must you think of me?" she said in obvious distress.
"I am in the dark," said Garth helplessly.
She recovered her forces. "I am not in the habit of going to restaurants alone," she said. "But the hotel here is so bad! I am afraid you must think me a frivolous person, and I am anxious you should not think so."
She smiled. "Very well," she said; "then there's no harm done."
"Natalie!" called the old lady, with a hint of irritation.
"Come and meet Mrs. Mabyn," she said quickly; and led the way.
"This is Mr. Pevensey, Mrs. Mabyn," she said.
The old lady regarded Garth with a sharp scrutiny; and Garth looked with interest at her. She was a fragile, elegant, plaintive little person of the old "lady-like" régime; but for all her gentleness, Garth was somehow conscious that he faced a woman of an iron will. She had the impatient, inattentive manner of one possessed by a single idea. With the result of her examination she appeared but half satisfied; she held out a delicate, wrinkled hand, dubiously.
"How do you do?" she said. "Please sit down."
"I am Natalie Bland," further explained the girl, who had again retreated to the window embrasure. "Mrs. Mabyn and I are travelling together."
"Dear Natalie is a daughter to me," murmured Mrs. Mabyn with commendable feeling.
The two women exchanged a glance which Garth was at a loss to interpret. He was looking at Natalie and he thought he saw patience, real affection, and perhaps a little kindly amusement--but there was something beyond; something grimmer and more determined, a hint of rebellion.
"My husband, Canon Mabyn, was the rector of Christ's Church Cathedral in Millerton, Ontario, up to the time of his death," murmured Mrs. Mabyn in her dulcet tones, with the air of one delivering all-sufficient credentials.