For a time they had met as they might have met had the interview in her apartment on the drizzly afternoon never occurred. She had torn that page out of their chronicles of acquaintanceship, and assumed that it had never been included. Her wit had sparkled for him and her individual charm had blossomed as though her life had never known a season other than spring and blossom-time. Sometimes he found himself wondering if that afternoon had been actual.
He discovered himself using quaint phrases of her invention as part of his own conversational equipment, and often he found himself applauded for some flash of repartee which he knew was only a quotation from her. But also he found himself incapable of that continuous self-restraint which she required of him under their agreement of a future basis. He had his moments when he could no more avoid feeling and acting and declaring himself her lover than he could avoid later regretting them, and, for this inability, he had been exiled.
"To you," she told him, "it means a minor thing—but it's not minor to me. I have had unhappiness enough without risking more. We must not see or write to each other." Paul knew nothing of what this decision cost her or of the many letters she had written to him—and destroyed unmailed.
Now he was utterly miserable and his heart was aching for companionship outside the two houses where the mildew of misery tainted even the sunshine that came through the windows. He craved the cheer and strength of a heart braver than his own, and in defiance of her orders he was going to see the woman in whose presence he should find these things; the woman whom he had not seen for months.
CHAPTER XXVI
AS he reached Washington square it seemed that the quiet of the section held a sort of benediction, and such peace as hangs between old walls, where the fever of stress has passed and left in its wake a philosophy and a contentment.
But when he came to the house where he had visited her, he was told that she no longer lived there. With a sudden pang it occurred to him that once more she might have moved a step down the economic scale toward the furnished room in one of those dingy lodging-houses which she had dreaded; places where the heart sickens at the forlornness of its environment.
He inquired for the girl with whom Marcia had shared the little apartment, and to his relief learned that she still had her abode here and would receive him. As he opened the door, Dorothy Melliss was bending over her drawing-board by a north window, rushing through some fashion illustrations which must be delivered on the morrow. She greeted Paul with a nod and went on with her work, while he explained his mission.