"I suppose I ought to say something," he began, halting in front of her, "but I don't know whether I want to ask your forgiveness for what occurred last night."
It was a strained moment, for both were painfully conscious. She averted her face.
"Perhaps," she suggested, "it would be better to say—nothing."
Then she looked at him; smiled; extended her hand.
Not until she was gone, a creature of white and russet-gold in the sunshine, did he remember that he did not know her address. This realization brought a new and enveloping sense of isolation.... Interlude! And this was the end—andante dolento!
CHAPTER VII
THE VERMILION ROOM
Sunset, like the wings of a giant golden moth, quivered in the sky and beat gently against the city, stirring from the earth a film of dust that, illuminated by the lingering glow, hung in the air like yellow pollen. Gold was the sovereign tone of every quarter. In the Shwe Dagon numerous Buddhas smiled at the vain splendor of goldleaf and gold-fretted spires; Victoria Lake, on whose banks social Rangoon had gathered to cool after a stifling day, lay like a gold-chased platter; along the riverfront, dull brown water, shot with glinting ripples, swirled and eddied beneath quayside godowns, and in the adjacent bazaars a concourse of native life moved against a background of gold-lettered signs and gilt-painted shops.
This golden dust-haze enveloped the bungalow in Prome Road where Dana Charteris was packing a suitcase; floated through the window of a house near the waterfront where Hsien Sgam sat talking to another Oriental; irradiated the interior of the tramcar that carried Tambusami toward the commercial town; and glowed in a luminous cloud about a veranda of the Strand Hotel where Trent, lounging in a wicker chair, engaged in an occupation that might have cast some slight reflection upon the morale of the British Army.