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He went back to the house abstractedly. Baron was sitting in a chair, smoking hard. Neither men spoke at first. Hagar went over to the mantel and adjusted the mirror, thinking the while of Mrs. Detlor's last words. "You haven't read your letters this morning," he repeated to himself. He glanced down and saw the letter which had so startled Mrs. Detlor. "From Mrs. Gladney!" he said to himself.
She ransacked her memory for half remembered melodies whimsical, arcadian, sad and Hagar sat watching her, outwardly quiet and appreciative, inwardly under an influence like none he had ever felt before. When his guests were ready, he went with them to their hotel. He saw that Mrs. Detlor shrank from the attendance of the Prince, who insisted on talking of the "stranger in the greenroom."
A score of things to say or do flashed through his mind, but he gave them up instantly, remembering that it was his duty to consider Mrs. Detlor before all. But he did say, "If you were old friends, you will wish to meet her, of course." "Yes. I have not seen her in many years. Where is she staying?" "At the Tempe hotel.
Then Mark Telford stepped down, still uncovered, and came to them. He did not offer his hand, but bowed gravely and said, "I hardly expected to meet you here, Mrs. Detlor, but I am very glad." He then bowed to Hagar. Mrs. Detlor bowed as gravely and replied in an enigmatical tone, "One is usually glad to meet one's countrymen in a strange land."
Detlor at once what Baron had told him or hold it till next day, when she might, perhaps, be better prepared to hear it, though he could not help a smile at this, for would not any woman ought not any woman to be glad that her husband was alive? He would wait. He would see how she had borne the interview with Telford. Presently he saw that Telford was gone.
"You're a brick, Baron," he said. "I tell you what, Hagar. I'd like to talk the thing over once with Mrs. Detlor. She's a wise woman, I believe, if ever there was one; sound as the angels, or I'm a Zulu. I fancy she'd give a fellow good advice, eh? a woman like her, eh?" To hear Mrs. Detlor praised was as wine and milk to Hagar.
These remarks were made in the passage from the door through the hallway into the room. As Baron entered, Hagar and Mrs. Detlor were just coming from the studio. Both had ruled their features into stillness. Baron stopped short, open mouthed, confused, when he saw Mrs. Detlor. Hagar, for an instant, attributed this to a reason not in Baron's mind, and was immediately angry.
Detlor, had been arranging itself in a hundred ways in his brain during the night the central figures always the same, the details, light, tone, coloring, expression, fusing, resolving. Then came another and still more significant thought. On this he had acted.
"It's right, right. His face shall come in later. But the heart of the thing is there." The last sentence was spoken in a louder tone, so that some one behind him heard. It was Mrs. Detlor. She had, with the young girl who had sat at her feet the evening before, been shown into the outer room, had playfully parted the curtains between the rooms and entered.
But he smiled, too, so that others, now gossiping, were unaware that the words were not of as light comedy as the manner. Hagar immediately began a general conversation and asked Baron to sing "The Banks o' Ben Lomond," feeling sure that Mrs. Detlor did not wish to sing again. Again she sent him a quick look of thanks and waved her fingers in protest to those who were urging her.
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