"Well, Celie, are you ready to go home?"
The girl looked up with a start.
"Of course, madame," she said, with a certain submissiveness which
surprised Ricardo. "I hope I have not kept you waiting."
She ran to the cloak-room, and came back again with her cloak.
"Good-bye, Harry," she said, dwelling upon his name and looking
out upon him with soft and smiling eyes.
"I shall see you tomorrow evening," he said, holding her hand.
Again she let it stay within his keeping, but she frowned, and a
sudden gravity settled like a cloud upon her face. She turned to
the elder woman with a sort of appeal.
"No, I do not think we shall be here, tomorrow, shall we, madame?"
she said reluctantly.
"Of course not," said madame briskly. "You have not forgotten what
we have planned? No, we shall not be here tomorrow; but the night
after--yes."
Celia turned back again to Wethermill.
"Yes, we have plans for tomorrow," she said, with a very wistful
note of regret in her voice; and seeing that madame was already at
the door, she bent forward and said timidly, "But the night after
I shall want you."
"I shall thank you for wanting me," Wethermill rejoined; and the
girl tore her hand away and ran up the steps.
Harry Wethermill returned to the rooms. Mr. Ricardo did not follow
him. He was too busy with the little problem which had been
presented to him that night. What could that girl, he asked
himself, have in common with the raddled woman she addressed so
respectfully? Indeed, there had been a note of more than respect
in her voice. There had been something of affection. Again Mr.
Ricardo found himself wondering in what street in Bohemia Celia
dwelt--and as he walked up to the hotel there came yet other
questions to amuse him.
"Why," he asked, "could neither Celia nor madame come to the Villa
des Fleurs tomorrow night? What are the plans they have made? And
what was it in those plans which had brought the sudden gravity
and reluctance into Celia's face?"
Ricardo had reason to remember those questions during the next few
days, though he only idled with them now.