Gerard did not smile as he went into the building. He too would have given much to spare Corrie Rose the memory of that October morning's fault. From all punishment except that memory he had sheltered him, further aid no one could give. But because he loved Corrie, he climbed the hotel stairs in slow abstraction and failed to perceive the limousine that came up before the Mercury Titan, and stopped.
He was standing by a table in the empty parlor of the hotel, when the door opened, and closed. Thinking some other guest had entered, he did not turn from the letters he was reading, nor was there any further movement or demand upon his attention. That which slowly invaded his consciousness was a summons more delicate than sound, a faint, distinctive flower-fragrance that proclaimed one individual presence. Flavia Rose was in the room; he knew it before he swung around and saw her standing there.
The shock that leaped along his pulses was less of hope than of renewed pain.
"Miss Rose!" he exclaimed.
She moved a little forward. Against her dark velvet gown, under her wide velvet hat, her soft, earnest face showed whitely lustrous and irradiated, her beautiful eyes dwelt on his.
"I never knew," she said, her clear voice like rippled water. "Your letter, the night before you went away, never came to me. I never knew you had sent for me, until last month."
The movement that brought Gerard across the room was as nakedly passionate as the incoherent simplicity of her speech.
"You never knew? Flavia, you would have come?"
"I would have come; I wanted to come long before, while you were so ill——"