John laid his hands upon the poisonous thoughts that had stolen once more into his blood, and told himself that he had strangled them. He swept them away and glanced at his watch.
"Let's have some dinner before I change, down in the grill-room—in a quarter of an hour's time, say. I don't want to be at the theater before the second act."
Sophy hesitated. There was a hard feeling in her throat, a burning at the back of her eyes. She was passionately anxious to be alone, yet she could not bring herself to refuse. She could not deny herself, or tear herself at once away from the close companionship which seemed, somehow or other, to have crept up between herself and John, and to have become the one thing that counted in life.
"I'd love to," she said, "but remember I've been traveling. Look at me! I must either go home, or you must let me go into your room—"
"Make yourself at home," John invited. "I have three letters to write, and some telephone messages to answer."
Sophy lit another cigarette and strolled jauntily through his suite of rooms. When she was quite sure that she was alone, however, she closed the door behind her, dropped her cigarette, and staggered to the window. She stood there, gazing down into an alleyway six stories below, where the people passing back and forth looked like dwarf creatures.
One little movement forward! No one could have been meant to bear pain like this. She set her teeth.
"It would be so soon over!"
Then she suddenly found that she could see nothing; the people below were blurred images. A rush of relief had come to her. She sank into the nearest chair and sobbed.