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Page 77
"Colonel Lord Wolverham's, sir."
"Good," said Nicol Brinn, and put the card and a ten-shilling
note into the man's hand. "Go right into the club and personally
give Colonel Lord Wolverham this card. Do you understand?"
The man understood. Used to discipline, he recognized the note of
command in the speaker's voice.
"Certainly, sir," he returned, without hesitation; and stepping
down upon the pavement he walked into the club.
Less than two minutes afterward a highly infuriated military
gentleman--who, as it chanced, had never even heard of the
distinguished American traveller--came running out hatless into
Piccadilly, holding a crumpled visiting card in his hand. The
card, which his chauffeur had given him in the midst of a
thrilling game, read as follows:
MR. NICOL BRINN
RALEIGH HOUSE,
PICCADILLY, W. I.
And written in pencil beneath the name appeared the following:
Borrowed your Rolls. Urgent. Will explain tomorrow. Apologize.
N.B.
CHAPTER XXIII. PHIL ABINGDON'S VISITOR
On the following morning the card of His Excellency Ormuz Khan
was brought to Phil Abingdon in the charming little room which
Mrs. McMurdoch had allotted to her for a private sanctum during
the period of her stay under this hospitable roof.
"Oh," she exclaimed, and looked at the maid in a startled way. "I
suppose I must see him. Will you ask him to come in, please?"
A few moments later Ormuz Khan entered. He wore faultless morning
dress, too faultless; so devoid of any flaw or crease as to have
lost its masculine character. In his buttonhole was a hyacinth,
and in one slender ivory hand he carried a huge bunch of pink
roses, which, bowing deeply, he presented to the embarrassed
girl.
"Dare I venture," he said in his musical voice, bending deeply
over her extended hand, "to ask you to accept these flowers? It
would honour me. Pray do not refuse."
"Your excellency is very kind," she replied, painfully conscious
of acute nervousness. "It is more than good of you."
"It is good of you to grant me so much pleasure," he returned,
sinking gracefully upon a settee, as Phil Abingdon resumed her
seat. "Condolences are meaningless. Why should I offer them to
one of your acute perceptions? But you know--" the long, magnetic
eyes regarded her fixedly--"you know what is in my heart."
Phil Abingdon bit her lip, merely nodding in reply.
"Let us then try to forget, if only for a while," said Ormuz
Khan. "I could show you so easily, if you would consent to allow
me, that those we love never leave us."
The spell of his haunting voice was beginning to have its effect.
Phil Abingdon found herself fighting against something which at
once repelled and attracted her. She had experienced this unusual
attraction before, and this was not the first time that she had
combated it. But whereas formerly she had more or less resigned
herself to the strange magic which lay in the voice and in the
eyes of Ormuz Khan, this morning there was something within her
which rebelled fiercely against the Oriental seductiveness of his
manner.
She recognized that a hot flush had covered her cheeks. For the
image of Paul Harley, bronzed, gray-eyed, and reproachful, had
appeared before her mind's eye, and she knew why her resentment
of the Persian's charm of manner had suddenly grown so intense.
Yet she was not wholly immune from it, for:
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