“Good-morning,” I said, and turned away. I was glad that there had been no one in the lane to see that parting; to anyone who had watched, knowing who that tall, blonde, savage-looking man was who had said good-morning so frigidly to that small girl with her head held in a very straight line with her back, it would have looked so ludicrously like the last thing in the world that it really was—a lover’s quarrel! How furiously he had marched off! I turned round, after walking on a few yards, to catch another glimpse of that stampede. Then I was sorry. For at that very moment he had elected to turn round and see me! It just shows that people are quite right to teach children _never_ to turn round on the road. I wish I hadn’t! CHAPTER XV “THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS” “Nancy! I say, Nancy! Here’s Billy and this new man of his turned up _hours_ before we expected them, and mother’s out calling somewhere, and Blanche is in the middle of washing her hair, and just look at the awful rip I’ve made in my frock; _I_ can’t come!” announced Theo in a voice subdued almost to a stage whisper when I met her on the stairs this afternoon. “So _you_ be a saint and go in and talk pretty to the visitor till tea, will you?” “All right,” I laughed; and passed on to the drawing-room. It was cool and dim in there after the sunshine of the garden, where I had been lazing over a book and forgetting this morning’s stress, and for a moment my eyes could scarcely make out the two figures that stood with their backs to the white-curtained French windows. Then, beside the Governor’s tall bulk, I saw a small, dapper, masculine silhouette with a rather too abrupt “pinch-in” at the waist of its coat, and a perky, quick turn of the head; the general effect of Mr. Cyril Maude in some military part that I had once seen. Was it this that seemed so familiar, I wondered? A monocle fell with a click against a waistcoat-button; then, as I came forward, a voice, also vaguely familiar, cried in amazement: “Monica Trant! Little Monica! Well, _I_ am blessed!” Who in the world was this that knew my name? I looked harder at him. Surely it—Was it?—yes! it _was_ one of father’s old friends, Major Montresor. So _this_ was my employer’s “business acquaintance.” I felt myself trying not to stare. The Governor, I know, was staring undisguisedly at the pair of us. “Why, bless my soul, Monica! Who’d have expected to see _you_ coming in like this?” “Or you, Major Montresor?” I retorted, obliged to smile at him as I held out my hand to his always tenacious clasp.