“It is a book you gave me years ago at Dinan,” she answered, looking at him piteously. “‘Hero Worship.’ Don’t you remember? I had never read anything of Carlyle’s before then. You taught me to like him.”
“Did I? Yes, I remember—a little Tauchnitz volume bound in morocco—contraband in England. A cheat—like many things in this life.”
He turned his face resolutely to the window, as if to end the conversation, and he did not speak again till they were moving slowly into the great station, in the azure brightness of the electric light.
“I have telegraphed for rooms at Whitley’s,” he said, naming a small private hotel near Cavendish Square, where they had stayed for a few days before he started for the East.
“Do you think it would be too late for us to call at Hans Place before we go to our hotel?”
She started at the question. He saw her cheeks crimson in the lamplight.
“I don’t think the lateness of hour will matter,” she said, “unless Gwendolen is dining out. She dines out very often.”
“I hope to-night may be an exception.”
“Do you want very much to see her?” asked Isola.