"IT IS HIS!"
The figure before me was that of a woman, calm, sweet-faced, her
countenance rendered piquant by its expression of surprise.
It was none other than Mabel Anson.
Dressed in a tight-fitting tailor-made gown of some dark cloth, and a
neat toque, she looked dignified and altogether charming. The slight
severity of attire became her well, for it showed her marvellous figure
to perfection, while the dash of red in her hat gave the necessary touch
of colour to complete a tasteful effect. Her countenance was concealed
by the thinnest of gauze veils, and as she held forth her well-gloved
hand with an expression of pleasure at the unexpected meeting, her
bangles jingled musically.
"This is indeed a most pleasant surprise, Miss Anson," I said, when I
recovered speech, for so sudden had been our encounter that in the
moment of my astonishment my tongue refused to utter a sound.
"And to me also," she laughed.
"I've been wondering and wondering when we should meet again," I blurted
forth. "I'm so very glad to see you."
For the first few moments after she had allowed her tiny hand to rest
for an instant in mine we exchanged conventionalities, and then
suddenly, noting a roll of music in her hand, I asked--
"Are you going home?"
"Yes, across the Park," she laughed. "Mother forbids it, but I much
prefer the Park to those stuffy omnibuses."
"And you've been to your music, I suppose?" I inquired.
"Yes. I've not been well for the past few days, and have missed several
lessons. Now, like a good pupil, I'm endeavouring to make them up, you
know." And she laughed merrily.
"How many times a week do you go to the Academy?" I asked, surprised
that she should have gone there that day, after what the hall-porter had
told me.
"Twice, as a general rule," she remarked; "but just now I'm rather
irregular."
"And so you prefer to cross the Park rather than ride by omnibus?"
"Certainly. Mother doesn't approve of girls riding on the tops of
'buses, and says it's fast. Therefore I'd much rather walk, for at this
hour half London seems to be going from Piccadilly Circus to
Hammersmith. I go right across, past the Serpentine, through Kensington
Gardens to the Broad Walk, and out by the small gate next the _Palace
Hotel_," she added, with a sweep of her gloved hand.
Her eyes were lovely. As she stood there in the fading sunlight she
seemed the fairest vision I had ever seen. I stood spell-bound by her
marvellous beauty.
"And may I not act as your escort on your walk to-day?" I asked.
"Certainly. I have no objection," she answered with graceful dignity,
therefore I turned and walked beside her, carrying her music.
We took the road, which leads straight away to the Magazine, and crosses
the Serpentine beyond. There in the yellow glow of the October sunset I
lounged at her side and drank my fill of her loveliness. Surely, I
thought, there could be no more beautiful woman in all the world. The
Colonel's strange warning recurred to me, but I laughed it to scorn.
As we passed beneath the rustling trees the sun's last rays lit up her
beautiful face with a light that seemed ethereal and tipped her hair
until there seemed a golden halo about her. I was no lovesick youth, be
it remembered, but a man who had had a bitter experience of the world
and its suffering. Yet at that hour I was fascinated by the grace of
her superb carriage, the suppleness of her figure, the charm of her
sweet smile, and the soft music of her voice as she chatted to me.
She told me of her love for music; and from the character of the pieces
which formed her studies I knew that she must be a musician of a no mean
order. The operatic melody which she had sung at the Colonel's was, she
declared, a mere trifle. We discussed the works of Rossini and Massent,
of Wagner and Mendelssohn, and of Verdi, Puccini, Mascagni, Perosi, and
such latter-day composers. I had always prided myself that I knew
something of music, but her knowledge was far deeper than mine.
And so we gossiped on, crossing the Park and entering Kensington
Gardens--those beautiful pleasure grounds that always seem so neglected
by the majority of Londoners--while the sun sank and disappeared in its
blood-red afterglow. She spoke of her life abroad, declaring that she
loved London and was always pleased to return to its wild, turbulent
life. She had spent some time in Paris, in Vienna, in Berlin, but no
one was half as interesting, she declared, as London.
"But you are not a Londoner, are you?" I asked.
"No, not exactly," she responded, "although I've lived here such a long
time that I've become almost a Cockney. Are you a Londoner?"
"No," I answered; "I'm a countryman, born and bred."
"I heard the Colonel remark that other night that you had been afflicted
by blindness for some time. Is that so?"