"Poetic simile: I'm going fast," conceded Kirkwood; but he did not smile. It was becoming quite too serious a matter for laughter. For her sake, he was in the game "for keeps"; especially in view of the fact that everything--his own heart's inclination included--seemed to conspire to keep him in it. Of course he hoped for nothing in return; a pauper who turns squire-of-dames with matrimonial intent is open to the designation, "penniless adventurer." No; whatever service he might be to the girl would be ample recompense to him for his labors. And afterwards, he'd go his way in peace; she'd soon forget him--if she hadn't already. Women (he propounded gravely) are queer: there's no telling anything about them!
One of the most unreadable specimens of the sex on which he pronounced this highly original dictum, entered the room just then; and he found himself at once out of his chair and his dream, bowing.
The woman nodded and smiled graciously. "Eccles has attended to your needs, I hope? Please don't stop smoking." She sank into an arm-chair on the other side of the hearth and, probably by accident, out of the radius of illumination from the lamp; sitting sidewise, one knee above the other, her white arms immaculate against the somber background of shadowed crimson.
She was very handsome indeed, just then; though a keener light might have proved less flattering.
"Now, Mr. Kirkwood?" she opened briskly, with a second intimate and friendly nod; and paused, her pose receptive.
Kirkwood sat down again, smiling good-natured appreciation of her unprejudiced attitude.
"Oh, Freddie's doing well enough.... Freddie," she explained, "has a delicate constitution and has seen little of the world. Such melodrama as to-night's is apt to shock him severely. We must make allowances, Mr. Kirkwood."
Kirkwood grinned again, a trace unsympathetically; he was unable to simulate any enthusiasm on the subject of poor Freddie, whom he had sized up with passable acumen as a spoiled and coddled child completely under the thumb of an extremely clever mother.
"Yes," he responded vaguely; "he'll be quite fit after a night's sleep, I dare say."
The woman was watching him keenly, beneath her lowered lashes. "I think," she said deliberately, "that it is time we came to an understanding."