"And now I'm a man—doesn't that show, doesn't it prove? Is it nothing to think of a woman so long as I've thought of you? What other man could say to you what I can say?"
"But you mustn't say it," she smiled—it cannot be written that she "forbade."
"Is your life so full," he asked, "that you have no room for my love?"
"Mr. Warrener, but really——"
"You hurt me," he said. "What have I done since we parted, to become 'Mr. Warrener' to you?"
"Are we going to sit on the terrace," said Lord Bletchworth, looking back, "or are we going inside? Mr. Warrener, you play, perhaps?"
"No," said Conrad, "I haven't played here. I don't care much about it anyhow."
"Let's sit down outside," said Lady Bletchworth. "It's so hot in there."
On the terrace it was very agreeable. The orchestra did not sound too insistent, and they found chairs where they could watch the people promenade without being inconvenienced by them. Extremes meet, and Ostend is their meeting-place. Only a light railing divides the fashionable world, and the half world from the world that works. On one side plod a humble flock of wearied trippers, who have had tea "As nice as mother makes it," in a sweltering shop at the back of the town. Among the shell pin-cushions, the franc souvenirs, they have had tea. All the evening they pass and repass with flagging feet, wishing they had chosen Margate. On the other side, women who were born in the same class trail Paquin's gowns. On the necks of some there are flowers that have cost as much as a tripper's holiday; a diamond in an ear is worth more than the price of a tripper's home. And Maggie from Dalston, with three tired children clinging to her ten-and-sixpenny skirt, gazes across that slender rail, and thinks. And her thoughts might be unpleasant to hear.
A really extraordinary thing was that no one but Conrad seemed aware that the railing bisected two worlds and a half. As for Conrad his reflections engrossed him so much that he quite forgot to attend to Mrs. Adaile. Only when he chanced to notice she was looking pensive in the starlight did it occur to him that he was ignoring a situation by which he ought to be thrilled.