communicative enough when any two of them were alone in solitary places.
It was so now, for the General waited till the Duke had left them to go up to his dressing-room before he remarked in a tone of grim humor:
“I told you that you would have her for a traveling companion.”
“I don’t anticipate much pleasure from the journey,” Forsyth replied, gloomily, and reddening under the searching gaze with which his uncle raked him.
But with the exception of the short drive to the station, during which Mrs. Talmage Eglinton was unusually preoccupied, he was spared the uncongenial tête-à-tête he had expected. When the train came in the fair American said chaffingly that she knew he was dying to smoke—that, anyhow, she was in a mood for meditation herself, and intended to indulge it in the seclusion of a “ladies’ compartment.” Forsyth responded with the barest protest demanded by courtesy, and went away to a smoking-carriage, much relieved.
He saw her again at St. Pancras; indeed, he contrived to be near enough to overhear the direction to an address in Bond Street
[236]
