to make up for lost time."

If, five hours ago, any one had told Annesley Grayle that she would wish
to have a strange man take her in his arms and kiss her she would have
felt insulted. Yet so it was. She was sorry that he was so scrupulous.
She longed to have him hold her against his heart.

The thought thrilled her like an electric shock a thousand times more
powerful than the tingling which had flashed up her arm at the first
touch of his hand, though even that had seemed terrifying then. But she
sat still in her corner of the taxi, and gave him no answer, lest she
should betray herself.

Her silence, after the warmth of his words, seemed cold. Perhaps he felt
it so, for he went on after an instant's pause, as if he had waited for
something in vain, and his tone was changed. Annesley thought it, by
contrast, almost businesslike.

"You mustn't be afraid," he said, "that I mean to stay at the Savoy
myself. Even if I'd been stopping there, I should move if I were going to
put you in the hotel. But I have my own lair in London. I've been over
here a number of times. Indeed, I'm partly English, born in Canada,
though I've spent most of my life in the United States. Nobody at the
Savoy but the Countess de Santiago knows who I am, and she'll understand
that it may be convenient for me to change my name. Nelson Smith is a
respectable one, and she'll respect it!

"Now, my plan is to ask for her (she'll be in by this time), have a few
words of explanation on the quiet, not to embarrass you; and the Countess
will do the rest. She'll engage a room for you next to her own suite, or