Leroux was driving out that
afternoon.
She did not endeavor to evade the occult meaning of the words, however.
In the wearily dreamy manner which, when first he had seen her, had
aroused Soames' respectful interest, she raised her thin hand to her
hair, slowly pressing it back from her brow, and directed her big eyes
vacantly upon him.
"Yes, Soames," she said (her voice had a faraway quality in keeping with
the rest of her personality), "Mr. King speaks well of you. But please
do not refer again to"--she glanced in a manner at once furtive and
sorrowful, in the direction of the study-door--"to the ... little
arrangement of"...
She passed on, with the slow, gliding gait, which, together with her
fragility, sometimes lent her an almost phantomesque appearance.
This was comforting, in its degree; since it proved that the smiling
Gianapolis had in no way misled him (Soames). But as a man of business,
Mr. Soames was not fully satisfied. He selected an evening when Mrs.
Leroux was absent--and indeed she was absent almost every evening, for
Leroux entertained but little. The cook and the housemaid were absent,
also; therefore, to all intents and purposes, Soames had the flat to
himself; since Henry Leroux counted in that establishment, not as an
entity, but rather as a necessary, if unornamental, portion of the
fittings.
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