He had accepted her decision without a murmur. He made but few efforts to see her alone, and when they met he made no special claim upon her notice. He was serving his apprenticeship doggedly and faithfully. Yet there were times like the present when he found his task both hateful and difficult.
He walked aimlessly backward and forward, chafing against the restraint of the narrow walls and the low ceiling. A sudden desire had seized him to fly back to the hills, wreathed in mist though they might be; to struggle on his way through the blinding rain, to drink down long gulps of his own purer, less civilized atmosphere.
The telephone-bell rang. He placed the receiver to his ear almost mechanically.
"Who is it?" he asked.
"Lady Hilda Mulloch is asking for you, sir," the hall-porter announced.
Lady Hilda peered around John's room through her lorgnette, and did not hesitate to express her dissatisfaction.
"My dear man," she exclaimed, "what makes you live in a hotel? Why don't you take rooms of your own and furnish them? Surroundings like these are destructive to one's individuality."
"Well, you see," John explained, as he drew an easy chair up to the fire for his guest, "my stay in London is only a temporary one, and it hasn't seemed worth while to settle anywhere."
She stretched out her graceful body in front of the fire and raised her veil. She was very smartly dressed, as usual. Her white-topped boots and white silk stockings, which she seemed to have no objection to displaying, were of the latest vogue. The chinchilla around her neck and in her little toque was most becoming. She seemed to bring with her an atmosphere indefinable, in its way, but distinctly attractive. Brisk in her speech, a little commanding in her manner, she was still essentially feminine.