“What makes you think that, Clemence?” he said, with judicial masterfulness. “Have you any reason, I mean?”
But Clemence was hardly able to define, even in her own pure mind, what it was that jarred upon her in her landlady’s manner; and to Julian she was utterly unable to put her feelings into words. Her hasty disclaimer and her hesitating beginnings and falterings, however, served to remove the misgiving which had stirred him lest some knowledge of his own real life should have come to the woman’s knowledge. He was the readier to let himself be reassured and to dismiss the subject in that the train was slackening speed for the last time before reaching London, and he intended to move into a first-class smoking carriage at the approaching station. Julian was well aware of the risks of discovery involved in these journeys with Clemence; and though he faced them nonchalantly enough, he used wits with which no one who knew him only in his capacities of man about town and budding barrister would have credited him, to reduce them to a minimum. To be seen emerging from a third-class carriage at Victoria Station was a wholly unnecessary risk to run, and he avoided it accordingly.
“You mustn’t be fanciful, Clemmie,” he said, now in a lordly and airy fashion. “I’ve no doubt Mrs. Jackson is a very jolly woman, as a matter of fact. Look here, dear, would you mind if I went and had a smoke now? It isn’t much further, you know, and one mustn’t smoke in hospital, you see!”
Clemence was very pale when he joined her on the platform at Victoria—joined her after a quick glance round to see whether he must prepare himself for an encounter with an acquaintance; and she did not speak, only looked up at him with a grave, steady smile which made her face sadder than before. His announcement of his intention of putting her into a hansom drew from her an absolutely horrified protest. She would go in an omnibus, she told him hurriedly, or in the Underground! She had never been in a cab! It would cost so much! But when he overruled her, a little impatiently—it was not yet dark, and he did not wish to remain longer than was necessary with her in Victoria Station—she submitted timidly, with a sudden slight flushing of her cheeks.
“A four-wheeler, Julian!” she murmured pleadingly, as they emerged into the station yard. With a lofty smile at what he supposed to be nervousness on her part, he signified assent with a little condescending gesture, and stopped before a waiting cab.
“Here you are,” he said. “Jump in!”
She got in obediently, and as he shut the door she turned to him through the open window.
“Good-bye, Julian!” she said, in a low, sweet voice.
“Good-bye!” he said cheerily, smiling at her. Her face in its dingy frame looked whiter, sweeter, and more steadfast than ever, and it made a curiously sudden and distinct impression on Julian’s mental retina. Then the cab turned lumberingly round, and he moved smartly away. He did not see that as the cab turned, that sweet, white face appeared at the other window and followed him with wide, wistful eyes until the moving life of London parted them.
Julian was on his way to the club. He had a vague disinclination to the thought of going home; the house in Chelsea was always more or less distasteful to him now, and he had no intention of going thither before it was necessary. It was nearly dark by the time his destination was reached, and as his hansom drew up a few yards from the club entrance he could only see that the way was stopped by a carriage from which two ladies and a gentleman had just emerged. It was the younger of the two ladies who glanced in his direction, and said, in a pretty, uninterested voice: