``No--'' said Clay, but so slowly and with such consideration that Miss Langham laughed and held her head a little higher.
``Not sorry to meet you, but to meet you in such surroundings.''
``What fault do you find with my surroundings?''
``Well, these people,'' answered Clay, ``they are so foolish, so futile.You shouldn't be here.There must be something else better than this.You can't make me believe that you choose it.
In Europe you could have a salon, or you could influence statesmen.There surely must be something here for you to turn to as well.Something better than golf-sticks and salted almonds.''
``What do you know of me?'' said Miss Langham, steadily.``Only what you have read of me in impertinent paragraphs.How do you know I am fitted for anything else but just this? You never spoke with me before to-night.''
``That has nothing to do with it,'' said Clay, quickly.``Time is made for ordinary people.When people who amount to anything meet they don't have to waste months in finding each other out.
It is only the doubtful ones who have to be tested again and again.When I was a kid in the diamond mines in Kimberley, Ihave seen the experts pick out a perfect diamond from the heap at the first glance, and without a moment's hesitation.It was the cheap stones they spent most of the afternoon over.Suppose IHAVE only seen you to-night for the first time; suppose Ishall not see you again, which is quite likely, for I sail tomorrow for South America--what of that? I am just as sure of what you are as though I had known you for years.''
Miss Langham looked at him for a moment in silence.Her beauty was so great that she could take her time to speak.She was not afraid of losing any one's attention.
``And have you come out of the West, knowing me so well, just to tell me that I am wasting myself?'' she said.``Is that all?''
``That is all,'' answered Clay.``You know the things I would like to tell you,'' he added, looking at her closely.
``I think I like to be told the other things best,'' she said, ``they are the easier to believe.''
``You have to believe whatever I tell you,'' said Clay, smiling.
The girl pressed her hands together in her lap, and looked at him curiously.The people about them were moving and making their farewells, and they brought her back to the present with a start.
``I'm sorry you're going away,'' she said.``It has been so odd.
You come suddenly up out of the wilderness, and set me to thinking and try to trouble me with questions about myself, and then steal away again without stopping to help me to settle them.
Is it fair?'' She rose and put out her hand, and he took it and held it for a moment, while they stood looking at one another.
``I am coming back,'' he said, ``and I will find that you have settled them for yourself.''
``Good-by,'' she said, in so low a tone that the people standing near them could not hear.``You haven't asked me for it, you know, but--I think I shall let you keep that picture.''
``Thank you,'' said Clay, smiling, ``I meant to.''
``You can keep it,'' she continued, turning back, ``because it is not my picture.It is a picture of a girl who ceased to exist four years ago, and whom you have never met.Good-night.''
Mr.Langham and Hope, his younger daughter, had been to the theatre.The performance had been one which delighted Miss Hope, and which satisfied her father because he loved to hear her laugh.Mr.Langham was the slave of his own good fortune.By instinct and education he was a man of leisure and culture, but the wealth he had inherited was like an unruly child that needed his constant watching, and in keeping it well in hand he had become a man of business, with time for nothing else.
Alice Langham, on her return from Mrs.Porter's dinner, found him in his study engaged with a game of solitaire, while Hope was kneeling on a chair beside him with her elbows on the table.
