CHAPTER IX.
Naida, early one afternoon, a few days after the dinner at Belgrave Square, raised herself on one elbow from the sofa on which she was resting, glanced at the roses and the card which the maid had presented for her inspection, and waved them impatiently away.
"The gentleman waits," the woman reminded her.
Naida glanced out of the window across a dull and apparently uninviting prospect of roofs and chimneys, to where in the background a faint line of silver and a wheeling flock of sea gulls became dimly visible through the branches of the distant trees.

The window itself was flung wide open, but the slowly moving air had little of freshness in it.

Sparrows twittered around the window-sill, and a little patch of green shone out from the Embankment Gardens.

The radiance of spring here found few opportunities.
"The gentleman waits," the serving woman repeated stolidly, speaking in her native Russian.
"You can show him up," her mistress replied a little wearily.
Immelan entered, a few moments later, spruce and neat in a well-fitting grey suit, and carrying a grey Homburg hat.

He was redolent of soaps and perfumes.