She seemed to understand but she
pointed once more to the room.
"I should like very much," she added, "to be alone for five
minutes. If you will come and find me then--please!"
Francis stepped through the French windows into the smoking-room,
where all the paraphernalia for satisfying thirst were set out
upon the sideboard. He helped himself to whisky and soda and
drank it absently, with his eyes fixed upon the clock. In five
minutes he stepped once more back into the gardens, soft and
brilliant now in the moonlight. As he did so, he heard the click
of the gate in the wall, and footsteps. His host, with Lady
Cynthia upon his arm, came into sight and crossed the lawn
towards him. Francis, filled though his mind was with other
thoughts, paused for a moment and glanced towards them curiously.
Lady Cynthia seemed for a moment to have lost all her weariness.
Her eyes were very bright, she walked with a new spring in her
movements. Even her voice, as she addressed Francis, seemed
altered.
"Sir Timothy has been showing me some of the wonders of his
villa--do you call it a villa or a palace?" she asked.
"It is certainly not a palace," Sir Timothy protested, "and I
fear that it has scarcely the atmosphere of a villa. It is an
attempt to combine certain ideas of my own with the requirements
of modern entertainment.
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