"I'm remembering that discretion is the better part of valour, Miss Barton."
"How do you mean?" she faltered.
"I'm running away in time. You see, I—I made a mistake: I reckoned you wouldn't be dangerous to me any more, and I was wrong.... So you won't think me ungrateful for going, will you? You've given me some very happy hours; I don't want you to think I didn't appreciate them. But I appreciate, too, the fact that you're a successful woman and that I've even less to hope for now than I had before. I went through hell about you once, dear—I couldn't stick it twice."
Her hand was passed across her eyes, and she trailed it on her skirt.
"Are you running away from—from my success? If I cared for you, do you think my success would matter?"
"Do you care for me?" His voice shook, like hers. He hated the chattering groups about them, as he bent conventionally over the tea-table. "Do you mean you could give your position up to be my wife?"
She rose. Her lips twitched before her answer came. It came in a whisper:
"You've never seen my rooms. Will you drive me there?"
And on the way she was very quiet.
The taxi stopped. In a dingy street she took a latchkey from her pocket, and opened a door, from which a milk-can hung. Perplexed, he followed. She led him to a parlour—a pitiable parlour, with atrocious oleographs on drab walls, and two mottled vases on a dirty mantelpiece.