"Of course you must. When will you come and dine quietly with us in
Berkeley Square, and go to the theatre?"
He shook his head.
"It is kind of you," he said, "but—"
"When will you come and have tea with me, then?"
He set his teeth. He had done his best.
"Whenever you choose to ask me," he answered, with a sort of dogged resignation.
She looked at him half curiously, half tenderly.
"You are so much changed," she murmured, "since those days at Enton.
You were a boy then, although you were a thoughtful one—now you are a
man, and when you speak like that, an old man. Come, I want the other
Mr. Brooks."
He sat quite still. Perhaps at that moment of detachment he realized more keenly than ever the withering nature of this battle through which he had passed. Indeed, he felt older. Those days at Enton lay very far back, yet the girl by his side made him feel as though they had been but yesterday. He glanced at her covertly. Gracious, fresh, and as beautiful as the spring itself. What demon of mischief had possessed her that she should, with all her army of admirers, her gay life, her host of pleasures, still single him out in this way and bring back to his memory days which he had told himself he had wholly forgotten? She was not of the world of his adoption, she belonged to the things which he had forsworn.
"The other Mr. Brooks," he murmured, "is dead. He has been burned in the furnace of this last wonderful year. That is why I think—I fear it is no use your looking for him—and you would not wish to have a stranger to tea with you."