"I'll be paid by the old man at the end of the week."
"That's all right. Here's five, son. I can recommend the one on the Avenue just below Fourteenth."
"The one what?" asked Evan innocently.
"Florist."
Evan blushed.
On his way down-stairs Evan tapped on her door with beating heart. There was no answer. With a sigh he went on. Carmen, who missed little, had heard him stop and coming out, volunteered the information that Miss Playfair had gone out real early. Evan thanked her, and hurried on, dreading to face the sharp-eyed spinster.
All morning he walked the streets with Simeon Deaves in a dream. In the middle of the day he made an excuse to avoid luncheon at the Deaves' and rushed home, stopping en route to buy a small-sized cartwheel of violets.
He let himself in softly and managed to get on the stairs without attracting Carmen's attention. The violets were hidden under his coat. Corinna's door stood open now, and his heart began to beat. "Will she recognise my step?" he thought. "I would know hers on my flight."
He stood in her doorway and the heart slowly froze in his breast. The room was empty, dreadfully empty. She was gone. The empty mantel, the empty floor, the empty place where the piano had stood seemed to mock at him. He turned a little sick, and put his hand out behind him on the door frame for support. "There is some mistake," he told himself, but he knew in his heart there was no mistake. This was the natural outcome of the tormenting mystery in which Corinna enveloped herself.
He looked stupidly down at the violets in his hand. In a spasm of pain he threw them on the floor and ground them under his heel. Their fragrance filled the room. Then the violence passed and he felt dead inside. He looked inside the little dressing-room—not that he expected to find her there, but it was a place to look. It was empty of course.