"
"On what?"
"On whom I shall see in the supper-room at one o'clock
precisely."
"You will see the Scarlet Pimpernel, of course. But you do
not know him."
"No. But I shall presently."
"Sir Andrew will have warned him."
"I think not. When you parted from him after the minuet he
stood and watched you, for a moment or two, with a look which gave me
to understand that something had happened between you. It was only
natural, was it not? that I should make a shrewd guess as to the
nature of that `something.' I thereupon engaged the young man in a
long and animated conversation--we discussed Herr Gluck's singular
success in London--until a lady claimed his arm for supper."
"Since then?"
"I did not lose sight of him through supper. When we all came
upstairs again, Lady Portarles buttonholed him and started on the
subject of pretty Mlle. Suzanne de Tournay. I knew he would not move
until Lady Portarles had exhausted on the subject, which will not be
for another quarter of an hour at least, and it is five minutes to one
now."
He was preparing to go, and went up to the doorway where,
drawing aside the curtain, he stood for a moment pointing out to
Marguerite the distant figure of Sir Andrew Ffoulkes in close
conversation with Lady Portarles.
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