Back to Letty. The Johnsons’ maid, opening the door to him, said: “Miss Letty’s just going to bed, sir, she’s not very well.”—And there she was, on the stairs, dragging her feet a little, as if tired out.
“Letty!”
She came down to him then, and laid her arms against his breast; and he bowed his head on to the soft warm skin of them, murmuring that he was sorry—so sorry——
“I hoped you’d be pleased, Sebastian. I thought you wanted to get into print. I did so hope you’d be pleased.”
“I’m a beast, Letty.—No, don’t move, darling—not for a minute—let me go on telling you—I’m a surly ungrateful brute ... but I love you——”
She raised her lips for his kiss.
Stuart, following Sebastian’s headlong rush from the room, reached the hall just as the heavy oak doors crashed behind his impetuous young devot. Shrugging his shoulders, the master of the house turned to enter the dining-room; the butler waylaid him, offering a letter on a silver tray:
“The post has just come in, sir.”
It seemed to Stuart that once before he had stood, as he stood now, with the echoes of the dinner-gong still vibrating through the hall, and in his hand an envelope, addressed in just this same thin pointed writing.... He drew forth the white and silver of a wedding invitation: