"No name. Just please tell Mr. Skinner that some one would like to see
him."
The servant stared, but went slowly away. Sylvia seated herself firmly
upon one of the boxes. In spite of her composed manner, her heart was
beating wildly. She heard a door open and the firm tread of a man along
the passage. Sylvia clung to her box. After all she was in the house, she
and her baggage. The door opened and a tall broad-shouldered man, who
seemed to fill the whole tiny room, came in and stared at her. Then he
saw her boxes, and he frowned in perplexity. As he appeared to Sylvia, he
was a man of about forty-five, with a handsome, deeply-lined aquiline
face. He had thick, dark brown hair, a mustache of a lighter brown and
eyes of the color of hers--a man rather lean but of an athletic build.
Sylvia watched him intently, but the only look upon his face was one of
absolute astonishment. He saw a young lady, quite unknown to him, perched
upon her luggage in a sitting-room of his house.
"You wanted to see me?" he asked.
"Yes," she replied, getting on to her feet. She looked at him gravely. "I
am Sylvia," she said.
A smile, rather like her own smile, hesitated about his mouth.
"And--
"Who is Sylvia? What is she?
Her trunks do not proclaim her!"
he said. "Beyond that Sylvia has apparently come to stay, I am rather in
the dark.
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