“It is a different thing,” he insisted.
“You will not take me there?” she said once more.
“I cannot,” Tavernake answered.
“Very well, good-bye!”
“Don't go,” he begged. “Can't I see you somewhere for a few minutes this evening?”
“I am afraid not,” Elizabeth replied coolly.
“Are you going out?” he persisted.
“I am going to the Duke of York's Theatre with some friends,” she answered. “I am sorry. You have disappointed me.”
She rang off and he turned away from the telephone booth into the street. It seemed to him, as he walked down the crowded thoroughfare, that some reflection of his own self-contempt was visible in the countenances of the men and women who were hurrying past him. Wherever he looked, he was acutely conscious of it. In his heart he felt the bitter sense of shame of a man who wilfully succumbs to weakness. Yet that night he made his efforts.
For four hours he sat in his lonely rooms and worked. Then the unequal struggle was ended. With a groan he caught up his hat and coat and left the house. Half an hour later, he was among the little crowd of loiterers and footmen standing outside the doors of the Duke of York's Theatre.