Grace instantly scented a mystery, and was not less promptly resolved to fathom it. And what must be the nature of a mystery attaching to a handsome man, unmarried, and evidently no stranger to the gentler sex? Of course there must be a woman in it! Her eyes glowed with azure fire.
“You have some acquaintances in California, I suppose?” she said, with an air of laborious indifference.
“Well,--yes; I believe I have,” Freeman admitted.
“No; not over a few months. I accidentally heard from a person in Panama. I dropped a line to say I might turn up.”
“She----you haven’t had time to get an answer, then?”
Freeman inhaled a deep breath through his cigarette, tilted his head back, and allowed the smoke to escape slowly through his nostrils. In this manner, familiar to his deep-designing sex, he concealed a smile. Grace was, in some respects, as transparent as she was subtle. So long as the matter in hand did not touch her emotions, she had no difficulty in maintaining a deceptive surface; but emotion she could not disguise, though she was probably not aware of the fact; for emotion has a tendency to shut one’s own eyes and open what they can no longer see in one’s self to the gaze of outsiders.
“No,” he said, when he had recovered his composure. “But that won’t make any difference. We are on rather intimate terms, you see.”
“Pretty long; at least it seems so to me.”
Grace turned, and looked full at her companion. He did not meet her glance, but kept his profile steadily opposed, and went on smoking with a dreamy air, as if lost in memories and anticipations, sad, yet sweet.
“Really, Mr. Freeman, I hardly thought--you have always seemed to care so little about anything--I didn’t suspect you of so much sentiment.”
“I am like other men,” he returned, with a sigh. “My affections are not given indiscriminately; but when they are given,--you understand,--I----”
“Oh, I understand: pray don’t think it necessary to explain. I’m sure I’m very far from wishing to listen to confidences about another,--to----”
“Yes, but I like to talk about it,” interposed Freeman, earnestly. “I haven’t had a chance to open my heart, you know, for at least six months. And though you and I haven’t known each other long, I believe you to be capable of appreciating what a man feels when he is on his way to meet some one who----”