He looked up to find a nervous gentleman with pince-nez and a white slip to his waistcoat glaring at him. His boot was resting on the opposite seat and a considerable portion of the gentleman's trouser-leg.
He was terribly sorry, dreadfully embarrassed, blushing, distressed. He buried himself in Couperas, and soon forgot his own dreams in pursuing the adventures of the large and melancholy familiar to whose dismal fate Couperas was introducing him. And behind, in the back of his head, something was saying to him for the two-millionth time, "I must not be such an ass! I must not be such an ass!"
He arrived in London at midday, and the first thing that he did was to telephone to Millie. She would be back in her rooms by five that afternoon. His impulse to rush to Christina he restrained, sitting in the Hill Street library trying to fasten his mind to the monotonous voice of Mr. Spencer, who was so well up in facts and so methodical in his brain that Henry always wanted to stick pins into his trousers and make him jump.
When he reached Millie's lodgings she had not yet returned, but Mary Cass was there just going off to eat some horrible meal in an A.B.C. shop preparatory to a chemistry lecture.
"How's Millie?" he asked.
She looked him over as she always did before speaking to him.
"Oh! She's all right!" she said.
"Really all right?" he asked her. "I haven't thought her letters sounded very happy."
"Well, I don't think she is very happy, if you ask me," Mary answered, slowly pulling on her gloves. "I don't like her young man. I can't think what she chose him for."