Alex felt passionately that in the depths of his stubborn vanity lay the truest presentment of himself that Noel would ever show her. If there was another side to his personality—and she was dimly willing to believe it for all her utter ignorance of him—the power to call it forth did not dwell in her.
Her momentary feeling of anger gave way to humiliation, and she half held out her hand.
"Good-bye, Noel," she said humbly.
As though to atone for the lack of feeling in his tone, Noel wrung her hand until it hurt her, as he replied automatically: "Good-bye, Alex."
"I suppose we shall never meet again," thought Alex, with all the finality of youth, and felt dazed as she saw him open the door.
Mechanically, she rang the bell in order that the servants downstairs might know that he was leaving, and come into the hall to find his hat and stick and to open the door for him.
Lady Isabel had instilled into Alex that it was part of her responsibility in grown-up life to ring the bell for departing guests, as unostentatiously as possible, at just the right moment, and every time that she remembered to do it, she always felt rather proud of herself.
This time she thought:
"It's the last time Noel will ever be in this room with me. He is going right out of my life."
She was quite unconsciously trying to awaken in herself an anguish of regret that might yet justify her to herself in recalling her lover.