And so he got off with the old love number two.
Finetta stood where he had left her for a second, then sprang forward with her magnificent arms stretched out.
"Yorke, Yorke!" broke from her white lips. But the door had closed, and he did not hear her.
She stood erect for a moment, then staggered and fell face downward upon the sofa.
Polly ran to her—locking the door on her way—and raised her head. She had fainted.
Polly poured some wine through the clenched teeth and bathed the set face, and presently Finetta came to; but it was to pass from a swoon into an awful torrent of weeping.
"He's gone! He's gone! Forever!" she moaned. "I shall never see him again! Why did I let him go like that? Why didn't I ask him on my knees to let us be friends still? I should have seen him now and again, and that would have been something; to speak to him, hear him laugh and talk, and call me 'Fin;' but it's all over now. He'll never come back! Oh, I wish I were dead, dead, dead!"
"Hush, hush," implored Polly, trying to soothe her. "He's better gone. There was no good in his staying."
"No, no! I know that! He never cared for me. I only amused him, and directly he left me he forgot me. They're all alike. No, he was different. Look how he came and told me—like a man! Oh, Yorke, Yorke! Oh, he little guesses how I——." Her lips shook, and she hid her face even from her sister.
"Where's your pride, Fin?" whispered Polly, almost as Lady Denby had said to Lady Eleanor.