He shook his head. Somehow, since the coming of Michael Dilwyn, a tired look had crept into his eyes. He seemed to have lost all his old vivacity. He had paid the bill some time before and they strolled together now into the lounge. Katharine was carrying half a dozen of the roses, which the waiter had pressed into her hand.
"To-night," she said, looking up into his face and dropping her voice a little, "I am feeling so much happier—happier than I have felt for a long time. Why do you keep us both, Mr. Thew, in such a state of uneasiness? You give us so little of your real confidence, so little of your real self. Sometimes it seems as though you deliberately try to make yourself out a harder, crueller person than you really are. Why do you do that?"
For a moment she fancied that the impossible had happened, that she had penetrated the armour of that steadfast and studied indifference.
"We are all just a little the fools of circumstance," he sighed. "A will to succeed sometimes, if it is strong enough, crushes out things we would like to keep alive."
She thrust one of the blossoms which she was carrying through his buttonhole.
"I know you will hate that," she whispered, "but you can take it out the moment you have gotten rid of us. Dick and I are going on now, you know, to the Esholt House dance. Shall I thank you for your dinner?"
"Or I you for your company?" he murmured, bowing over her fingers.
They took their leave, and Jocelyn Thew, almost as though against his will, walked back into the foyer, after a few minutes of hesitation, and sat there twirling the rose between his fingers, with his eyes fixed upon the interior of the restaurant. He had the air of one waiting.
CHAPTER XXIII
Crawshay was awakened the next morning a little before the customary hour by his servant, who held out a card.