He had a thrill in Drake’s dull drawing-room from the sense of nearness to Lily, and from the looking-glass room it was back to back with the more vital drawing-room next door.
Michael could hardly bear to look out of the window into the oblong gardens; two months away from Lily made almost unendurable the thought that in one tremulous instant he might be imparadised in the vision of her reality.
“Hullo! She’s there,” said Drake from the window. “With another chap.”
Michael with thudding heart and flaming cheeks stood close to Drake.
“Naughty girl!” said Drake. “She’s flirting.”
“I don’t think she was,” said Michael, but, even as he spoke, the knowledge that she was tore him to pieces.
Chapter XIX: Parents
T HE brazen sun lighted savagely the barren streets, as Michael left Trelawny Road behind him. His hopeless footsteps rasped upon the pavement. His humiliation was complete. Not even was his personality strong enough to retain the love of a girl for six weeks. Yet he experienced a morbid sympathy with Lily, so unutterably beneath the rest of mankind was he already inclined to estimate himself. Stella opened wide her grey eyes when she greeted his pale disheartened return.
“Feeling ill?” she asked.
“I’m feeling a worthless brute,” said Michael, plunging into a dejected acquiescence in the worst that could be said about him.