"Very well, Merat, I will get up. I will ring for you when I have had my bath."
"Lady Duckle has gone out, and will not be home for lunch."
There was not even a letter, and the day stretched out before her. Ulick might call, but she did not think he would. She thought of a visit to her father, but something held her back, and Dulwich was a long way. After breakfast she went to the piano and sang some of Ulick's music; stopping suddenly in the middle of a bar, she thought she would send him a note asking him to come to lunch. But what should she do till two o'clock? it was now only eleven. Suddenly it struck her that she might take a hansom and go and see him. She had never seen his rooms, and to visit him there would be more amusing than for him to come to Park Lane; and she imagined his surprise and delight at seeing her. Her thoughts went to the frock she would wear—a new one had come home yesterday—this would be an excellent opportunity to wear it. She would take him to lunch with her at some restaurant! She was in excellent humour. Her thoughts amused her, and she reflected that she had done well to choose the pale shot silk with green shades in it. It was trimmed with black lace, and she selected a large black hat with black ostrich feathers to wear with it.
And seeing the people in the streets as she drove past, she wondered if they were as happy as she was. She speculated on their errands, and wondered if many of the women were going, like her, to their lovers. She wondered what their lovers were like, and she laughed at her thoughts. Seeing that she was passing through a very mean street, she hoped that Ulick's rooms were not too Bohemian, and felt relieved when she found that the street she dreaded led into a square. A square, she reflected, always means a certain measure of respectability. And the faded, old-fashioned neighbourhood pleased her. Some of the houses seemed as if they had known more fashionable days; and the square exhaled a tender melancholy; it suggested a vision of dreamy lives—lives lived in ideas, lives of students who lived in books unaware of the externality of things.
But the cabman could not find the number, and Evelyn impatiently inquired it from the vagrant children. There were groups of them on the wide doorstep, and Evelyn imagined the interior of the house, wide passages, gently-sloping staircase, its heavy banisters. It surprised and amused her to find that she had imagined it quite correctly; and when she reached the landing to which she had been directed, she stopped, hearing his voice. He was only talking to himself; she pushed the door and called to him.
"Oh, it is you?" he said; "you have come sooner than I expected."
"Then you expected me, Ulick?"
"Yes, I expected you."
"Expected me ...to-day! But, Ulick, what were you saying when I came in?"
"Only some Kabbalistic formula," he replied, quite naturally.