solicitors, with whom I necessarily had business. It was better, therefore, to call on her at once, both to prevent her from suspecting my suspicions and to keep up appearances in the eyes of the neighbourhood.
Accordingly, I went round to Whittington Terrace on the day after my arrival. I sent up my name by the maid (a new girl since my time), and, after a short interval, Margaret Harrison came down to me. She was dressed in deep mourning, very fashionably cut, and came up to me with the gushing manner which I had always so greatly disliked.
“Oh, Paul!” she said, “isn’t this terrible? How dreadful it has been for you, poor dear, all that long way away! I am so glad you have managed to get home!”
“If you are,” I said, “it must be for the first time on record.”
Her face took on the sulky look I knew so well.
“I knew you never liked me, Paul,” she said, “but surely this is hardly the time to bear a grudge.”
“Perhaps not,” said I, “but it hardly seems worth while to pretend that you are delighted to see me.”
“As you like,” she replied. “We may as well sit down, anyway.”
She sat down, and I went over and stood by the window.
“You are staying here, of course?” she inquired, after a short silence.
I replied that I preferred to live at an hotel for the present, because it was more convenient for business.
“Of course,” she said, “you will have a lot of things to see about. I quite understand. I kept the house on, because I didn’t know what your plans would be. But perhaps you think it would be better to give it up?”