“I don’t know about that,” he said. “Good night, Clemence.”
“Good night,” she said.
He hesitated a moment. He never went to meet her without a firm and definite intention of sealing their parting with a kiss. But he had never done so yet, and he did not do it now.
“Good night,” he said again, rather lamely; and then they parted, she going quickly and quietly down the street, he passing out of it into the noise and bustle of the Hammersmith Road.
Once there, he paused as though undecided.
“It’s too early to go home,” he said to himself. “I’ll go down to the club for a bit.”
There were a good many men in the club-room when he entered it half an hour later—and Julian—quite another young man to the Julian who had walked to the Hammersmith Road—was discussing the latest society topic with much animation over a whisky and seltzer, when Loring, to whom he had nodded at the other end of the room, strolled up to him, cigar in hand.
“Dinner been a failure?” he enquired.
There was nothing particular about the words; and the tone in which they were uttered was singularly, almost significantly, devoid of expression. But there was a keen, satirical expression in his eyes as he fixed them on Julian.
Julian started slightly at the words, and a curious flash of expression passed across his face.