she maintained the graceful languor of her pose, lying back a little
wearily in her chair, yet her narrow, gleaming eyes pierced every corner
of the room, with avid eagerness absorbing the whole, and then returning
for a closer and more penetrating study of details, as if demanding from
this room where he lived and thought a comprehensive revelation of him,
a key to that remote, uncharted self which still evaded her.

Seagreave himself, whose visible presence was, for the time, outside the
field of her conjecture, was busy preparing her breakfast, and now,
after laying the cloth, he placed a chair for her at the table and
announced that everything was ready. He seated himself opposite her and
Pearl's heart thrilled at the prospect of this intimate _tête-a-tête_,
the color rose on her cheek, her lashes trembled and fell.

"Where's José?" she said hastily, to cover her slight, unusual
embarrassment. "Tell me quick how you managed it. Neither Bob nor Pop
could tell me because someone was always with us."

"Ah," he said, "the gods were with us, but it was a wild chance, I
assure you. Fortunately, it was still snowing. Hugh and José were
already in the cart and everyone else had hastened home as fast as he or
she could go. The boys would not have waited for me if I had not dashed
out just when I did, and I was glad enough to escape, for I was afraid
they would make some mistake in the road, Hugh not being able to see,
and José familiar with the village only through our description of it. I
wasted no time in jumping into the cart and then drove like Jehu to the
Mont d'Or, fortunately on our way up the hill."

"The Mont d'Or!" she interjected in surprise. "But why did you stop
there?"