"How long has she been living with you here?" he asked, when Traill had closed the door and returned to the continuance of his dressing.
"A few months over three years."
"Of course—I remember your telling me."
They fell into silence, Devenish watching his friend with half-conscious amusement as he clumsily tied a white tie, then shot his arms into waistcoat and coat, one after the other, with no study of the effect and apparently but little interest.
Lest it should seem unaccountable that this man, seemingly a stranger, walking casually one evening into his rooms, should be apparently so intimately possessed of the circumstances of Traill's relationship with Sally, it were as well to point out that men in their friendship are bound by no necessity of constant meeting. In a while they meet and for a while see nothing of each other; but when they meet—no matter what time may have elapsed since their last coming together—they are the same friends whose conversation might just have been broken, needing only the formalities of welcome to set it going on again, as you wind a clock that has run out the tether of its spring. To account then for the friendship of these two so diametrically opposed in character—for in Devenish's regard for appearances and Traill's supercilious contempt of them, there are the foundations of two utterly opposite characters—it is necessary to say that their friendship had been formed at school, after which, a train of circumstances had nursed it to maturity. At school, Devenish had been an athlete, superior to Traill in every sport that he took up. You have there the ground for approval and a certain strain of sympathy between the two men. The fact that at the 'Varsity Devenish had developed taste for dress was outweighed by the fact that he was a double blue, holding place in the fifteen and winning the quarter-mile in a time that justified admiration.
These qualities had left a lasting impression upon Traill. He disliked the dandy with a strong predisposition to like the man. Knowing little of his life in society, refusing to meet his wife—where he assured Devenish all friendships between man and man ended—he had retained that predisposition towards friendship and in the light of it had spoken, as every man does to another who is his friend, in an open yet casual way about his life with Sally.
"She lives with me," he had admitted. "If you'd rather not meet her, say so. If you'd like to, don't look down on her—I don't suppose you would, but I never trust the virtue of the married man, he's compelled to wear it on his sleeve. Anyhow, she's the best. I've never met any woman for whom I'd so readily contemplate the ghastly ceremony of marriage. But I suppose every one lays hold of what he can take. I'm absolutely satisfied as I am. The strange woman has no fascination for me now."
Two years and a half had passed since Traill had said that. Now Devenish had dropped in again for the third or fourth time and found them, still together, but with a vague and subtle difference upon it all, to which his astute mind had assigned the reason which Sally only, beside himself, was aware of. Traill was tiring. If Devenish did not know it instinctively, then he made his deductions from the fact alone that brought about the mentioning of the name of Coralie Standish-Roe. To him, with his own social knowledge of that young lady, the fact in itself was sufficient.
By the time that Traill was ready, Sally came down prepared to go out. They all descended the stairs together, parting in the street, where Traill held Sally's hand affectionately, then called a hansom and drove away.
With apparently casual glances, Devenish watched Sally's face as she looked after the departing cab. She followed it with her eyes as they walked up into the Circus; followed it until it welded into the mass of traffic and was lost from sight.