Half an hour later, his plan of campaign suddenly yielded
a victory. Lady Cressage appeared on her balcony,
clad in some charming sort of morning gown, and bareheaded.
She had nothing in her hands, and seemed indifferent
to the birds, but when Thorpe flung forth a handful
of fragments into the centre of their whirling flock,
she looked up at him. It was the anxious instant, and he
ventured upon what he hoped was a decorous compromise
between a bow and a look of recognition.
She was in no haste to answer either. He could see
rather than hear that she said something to her invisible
companion within, the while she glanced serenely
in the general direction of his balcony. It seemed
to him that the answer to her remark, whatever it was,
must have exerted a direct influence upon his destiny,
for Lady Cressage all at once focussed her vague regard
upon him, and nodded with a reasonably gracious smile.
"It's wonderful luck to find you here," he called
down to her. Having played their part, he wished now
that the birds were at Jericho. Their obstreperous
racket made conversation very difficult. Apparently she
made him an answer, but he could catch nothing of it.
"I'm here with my niece and nephew," he shouted down.
"I don't hear what you say. May I come down and pay
my respects--later on? What is your number, and when may
I come?"
These questions, as he flashed them in review through his mind,
seemed to be all right from the most exacting social
point of view.
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