“I am supposed to be at the opera to-night,” she explained. “Sit down, if you have a few minutes to spare.”
I said it was for a talk that I had come; and there, in the dark room, lighted only by the street lamp without, she told me all. And at the end she dropped her head on her bare arms; and I turned away and looked out of the window for a while.
“I feel so ridiculous,” she said, rising and coming towards me. “I sit here all the evening dressed like this. I’m afraid I don’t act my part very well; but, fortunately, dear Billy never was much of a judge of art, and it is good enough for him. I tell him the most awful lies about what everybody has said to me, and what I’ve said to everybody, and how my gowns were admired. What do you think of this one?”
For answer I took the privilege of a friend.
“I’m glad you think well of me,” she said. “Billy has such a high opinion of you. You will hear some funny tales. I’m glad you know.”
I had to leave London again, and Billy died before I returned. I heard that she had to be fetched from a ball, and was only just in time to touch his lips before they were cold. But her friends excused her by saying that the end had come very suddenly.
I called on her a little later, and before I left I hinted to her what people were saying, and asked her if I had not better tell them the truth.
“I would rather you didn’t,” she answered. “It seems like making public the secret side of one’s life.”
“But,” I urged, “they will think—”
She interrupted me.