Adrian paused good-naturedly. “You need give yourself no uneasiness, madam,--it will require half an hour’s time at least for a steamboat to pass this place from the moment that she is sighted,” he said, in polite commiseration.
But the old lady sat tight. “They tell me there is a crazy man in there,” she declared lugubriously. She would leave by the first opportunity.
“He is going presently in a phaeton across the country,” Adrian explained. “There is no possible danger from him, however,--he has only occasional attacks. He is perfectly at himself to-day. But he will not be going on the boat.” This remark was unlucky, as it increased her anxiety to embark.
Randal had lifted his hat after a moment’s pause, and passed on without his brother. He hesitated, looked back, then entered the vestibule, and came suddenly face to face with Paula.
It had been five years since they had met and then it was as lovers. She had not dreamed of seeing him here. She thought him ten miles away at Caxton. She had never been more brilliantly, more delicately beautiful. Her burnished redundant hair that was wont to resemble gold, and to seem so elaborately tended, had now a luminous fibrous effect at the verges of the smooth pompadour roll that had been hastily tossed up from her forehead. She even appeared taller, more slender than usual, since she wore a clinging gown of princess effect, in one piece, and, obviously, of matutinal usage, in more conventional surroundings. The flowing sleeve showed her bare arm from the elbow, exquisitely white and soft. The V-shaped neck gave to view her delicate snowy throat rising from a mist of lace. The strange large flower-pattern cast over a ground of thick sheeny white was an orchid with a gilded verge, and in the mauve and pearl tones she, too, looked like some rare and radiant bloom. Her eyes were sweet and expectant--her step swift. She was on her way to call back the child. She paused suddenly, dumfounded, disconcerted, confronted with the past.
She recognized Randal in one instant, despite his resemblance to his brother, and for her life she could not command her countenance. It was alternately red and white in the same moment. She felt that his confusion would heighten hers, yet she could not forgive his composure, his well-bred, graceful, gracious manner, his clear, vibrant, assured voice when he exclaimed, holding out his hand: “Mrs. Floyd-Rosney--this is an unexpected pleasure. I have this moment heard that you are here. Is that your husband?” For Floyd-Rosney had just issued from the dining-room and was advancing down the hall toward her with an unmistakable, connubial frown. “Will you kindly present me?”