FOODLESS and miserable Mame left the precincts of the Ladies Imperium and crossed over to the Green Park. The sun had a real touch of warmth in it. Flowers, bird music, the gentle breath of spring were all around. But Mame subsided in the first seat she came to beyond the railings and had desperately to fight a threat of tears.
What a mess she had made of things! In one brief hour she had been cast down from the heights. She felt that all was lost. Yes, all, including honour. There was no excuse for what she had done. She had been tempted and she had fallen.
For about twenty minutes she sat there in despair. And then a diversion came. It was the sort of diversion that in this dark hour she would have given much to avoid. But it seemed there was no escape. It had to be met.
Right in the midst of her painful reflections her eye was caught by a tall, free-striding, oncoming figure. Moreover, the recognition was mutual and it was simultaneous. Bill had seen her in the very moment that she had seen him. He had a bulldog on a lead, a large, ugly, yet most amiable beast. Both Bill and his dog seemed on very good terms with life. Bill in particular looked pleased with his luck in finding little Miss Chicago sitting alone on a seat in the Green Park, at one thirty-five in the afternoon.
He as good as said so.
Mame was not much given to tears. Her life had always been too hard for luxuries of that kind. But seldom had she been nearer shedding them. Bill, however, must not guess that anything was wrong. Yet, for all her powers of dissimulation, which were not inconsiderable, he was not wholly deceived.
“You want some lunch,” he said in the casual manner that belonged to his sister and yet with a half-humorous directness peculiarly his own. Mame liked that directness exceedingly. And never more than now. There was something very masculine about it, something genuine, something protective. It was not the least of the penalties she had incurred that she would have to forego the society of Bill. And of the likes of Bill.
“Well, what about it?” he broke in upon the distinct pause that had followed his statement. “Let’s nip across to the Berkeley and have a bite. Or the Ritz—if you prefer it?”
Mame did not feel like the Berkeley, nor yet like the Ritz.
“I’m not hungry,” she said with a lack of nuance for which she despised herself.