"I cannot leave the house yet. The old man will be going to bed in an hour or so, and then I can join you in the street."
"Then I will wait for you; opposite, by the Park railings. You will be sure to come? I will make it worth your while." The footman laughed, a loud, brazen laugh, which rang through the hall, filling Bertie with alarm.
"Then you are a gentleman now? And pretty flush, eh?"
"Yes," said Van Maeren hoarsely. "Then you will come?"
"Yes, yes. In an hour or more, fully an hour. Wait for me. But if I am to do anything for you, you will have to fork out, you know; and fork out handsomely too!"
"All right, all right," said Bertie. "But I hope you will not fail me. I count on your coming, mind."
The door was ruthlessly shut. He walked up and down for a very long time in the cold and damp. The chill pierced to his very marrow, while the twinkling gas lamps stared at him through the grey mist like watery eyes. He waited, pacing the pavement for an hour—an hour and a half—perishing of fatigue and cold, like a beggar without a shelter. Still he waited, shivering as he walked, his hands in his pockets, his eyes dull with self-contempt, staring out of his white face at the dark square of the door, which still remained shut.
XV.
When, after a few days of anxious expectancy, Frank still had no answer from Eva, he wrote a second time; and although the first bloom of his revived hopes was already dying, he started whenever the bell rang, and would go to the letter-box in the front door; his thoughts were constantly busy with picturing the messenger who was walking up the road with his happiness—wrapped up in an envelope. And he would imagine what Eva's answer might be: just a few lines—somewhat cool, perhaps—in her large bold English hand, on the scented, ivory-laid paper she always used, with her initials crossed in pink and silver in one corner.