IV
There's hope left yet.
The Virgin Martyr.
At seven o'clock he went to the station, hoping (against his better judgment) that he might see Ottalie at the train. The train was very crowded. The travellers wore the pleased, expectant look with which one leaves an English city. Ottalie was not among them. He went down the train twice, in opposite directions, without success. She was not there. She must have started that morning. He had missed her.
He sat down on one of the station benches. His world seemed slipping from him. He told himself that to-morrow he would have to work, or all these worries would destroy him. He felt more lonely than he had ever felt in his life. A week before, he would have had O'Neill, Pollock, and another friend, now abroad. O'Neill was gone, without a farewell. Pollock was fighting his own battles, with poor success. Ottalie was thundering across France, or, perhaps, just drawing into Paris.
A longing to see some one drove him out of the station. He walked to Soho, to a Spanish restaurant, where some of his friends sometimes dined.
Here, at night, the curious may visit Spain, and hear the guttural, lisping speech, and munch upon chuletas, and swallow all manner of strangeness in cazuelas. Very bold young men cry aloud there for "Mozo," lisping the z. The less bold signal with the hand. The timid point, and later, eat that which is set before them, asking no question, obeying Holy Writ, though without spiritual profit.
On entering the place, he bowed to the Scotch-looking, heavily-earringed Spanish woman, who sat at the desk reading Blanco y Negro. She gave him a "Buenas tardes," without lifting her eyes. Then came, from his right, a cry of "Naldrett!"
Two painters, a poet, and proportionable woman-kind, were dining together there, over the evening papers.
"How are you?" said one of the painters.