"'That face!'" Napier mocked. "I suppose, out of pure contentiousness, you'll be saying it's pretty."
"'Pretty!' Pretty faces are cheap. That one has got the fineness of a wood anemone. And the faith of a St. Francis. Did you ever _see_ such faith in any pair of eyes? Ye gods! If I could believe in life as that child does, if I were as serenely sure of everybody's good will,"--he threw out his walking-stick at the prison wall between him and such freedoms, such innocent securities. "It's pathetic--a person like that. Think of the knocks she'll get. Think--"
"What I'm thinking of--I can't get it out of my mind! Every time I go back to it, it seems to me stranger--the expression on the von Schwarzenberg's face when the girl recognized Pforzheim."
"What sort of expression?" said Julian, absently.
"I wish you'd seen it! And the way she looked after Carl with a sort of cowering apology, before she plunged into the car. Now leave off quarreling with me about the Mercury cap, and just tell me: Why the devil should that woman have pretended she'd never seen the Pforzheims before she met them at Kirklamont? I wake up in the middle of the night and ask myself that question."
That hall at Kirklamont was for Gavan Napier, as he looked back, forever associated with the most decisive hours in his own fate, as well as that of his closest friend. It meant to him, perhaps more than anything, the abiding memory of that morning after the arrival of Miss Greta's "little friend."
He stood in front of the fireplace, waiting for Andrews to bring in the post. At that particular moment there wasn't anybody else in the hall. There probably soon would be somebody, Napier reflected, with a mingled sense of amusement and uneasiness. For this was about the time Miss von Schwarzenberg was astute enough to choose for her little tête-à-têtes with the private secretary--always elaborately accidental. Sir William would be out riding; Lady McIntyre dawdling over her late breakfast, and Madge in the schoolroom, as Napier could all too plainly hear, practising with that new ruthlessness introduced by Miss von Schwarzenberg.
Miss Greta was never so at a loss as to enter without her little excuse, "I think I must have left my knitting." Or, _sans_ phrase, she would go to the writing table and consult Whitaker or Bradshaw. There was always a semblance of reasonableness in such preoccupation. For Lady McIntyre had fallen into the habit of going to Miss Greta for every sort of service, from somebody's official style and title to looking out trains.