“18, Large Street, W.
“12.30.
“I told you a lie! and I feel that you will never forgive me! Yet I want to explain it. There is something I want you to know! Will you come and see me? I shall be at home until one o’clock to-morrow morning, or, if the afternoon suits you better, from 4 to 6.
“Berenice.”
A lie! Yes, it was that. To him, an inveterate lover of truth, the offence had seemed wholly unpardonable. He had set himself to forget the woman and the incident as something altogether beneath his recollection. The night, with its host of strange, half-awakened sensations, was a memory to be lived down, to be crushed altogether. For him, doubtless, that lie had been a providence. It put a stop to any further intercourse between them,—it stamped her at once with the hall-mark of unworthiness. Yet he knew that he was disappointed; disappointment was, perhaps, a mild word. He had walked through the streets with Ellison, after that meeting with her at the theatre, conscious of an unwonted buoyancy of spirits, feeling that he had drawn into his life a new experience which promised to be a very pleasant one.
There were things about the woman which had not pleased him, but they were, on the whole, merely superficial incidents, accidents he chose to think, of her environment. He had even permitted himself to look forward to their next meeting, to a definite continuance of their acquaintance. Standing in the doorway of the brilliantly lighted Milan, he had looked in at the vivid little scene with a certain eager tolerance,—there was much, after all, that was attractive in this side of life, so much that was worth cultivating; he blamed himself that he had stood aloof from it for so long.
Then their eyes had met, he had seen her sudden start, had felt his heart sink like lead. She was a creature of common clay after all! His eyes rested for a moment upon her companion, a man well known to him, though of a class for whom his contempt was great, and with whom he had no kinship. She was like this then! It was a pity.
His cigarette went out, and a rain-drop, which had been hovering upon a leaf above him, fell with a splash upon the sheet of heavy white paper. He rose to his feet, stiff and chilled and disillusioned. His little ghost-world of fancies had faded away. Morning had come, and eastwards, a single shaft of cold sunlight had pierced the grey sky.