“Is that a hint?” he asked her. She turned to the stage.
“You drive me to it,” she said. “You have been very rude.” He rose.
“I can spare you that, at any rate,” he said, opened his hat with a clatter, bowed and left her. Her bosom rose and fell fast, and faster, as the clouds gathered and swept across her eyes. Hateful man—but what had she done? A tyrant: he bullied women. She felt very lonely; the great house seemed to grow dark, the great music to howl and bray. Palmer Lovell came in presently, after him came Gunner; but she could get no joy out of them, and waited on miserably for her husband. She found herself praying for him, who at least would be gentle with her. He was late, however, and she could bear no more. She left after the third act.
In her brougham she had a vision—it could have been nothing else. At the corner of Endell-street, under a gas-lamp and in the full light of it, she saw a tall man standing. He was reading a newspaper, and had no hat on his head. Her heart jumped—oh, that could be but one person in the world! Her friend! Senhouse in London!
The detestable Tristram was forgotten; Palmer Lovell, the mellifluous Wing went down, soused in Cornish seas. Cornish seas, sluiced rocks, green downs, birds adrift in the wind, opened out across the yellow flare of a London night. She went wide-awake to bed, and lay sleeplessly there. The very next afternoon, as she was coming out of a great shop in Regent-street, crossing the pavement to get into her carriage, she almost ran into his arms.
| [A] | The poor gentleman must have been more than usually on stilts when he made the speech (on poultry farming) which earned him this sobriquet. |
VI
SENHOUSE ON THE MORAL LAW
She could have jumped into them. “You!” she cried. “Then it wasn’t a dream at all. I saw you last night—near the Opera.”
He teased her with his wry smile. “And I saw you last night at the Opera.”