"'It will always have been worth it.... But there is something missing, isn't there?'
"'But, of course, Don Noël! There is much missing, for it is an unfinished romance which will never be finished. You do not understand—this is life!
"'I know. You are a baby, like all really nice men, and you want a piece of chocolate to eat as you go away,' she said. 'Bring your head down—yes, down, down, Noël—and I will give it to you.... Listen, you! It is decided that you will never see me again, is it not? And that you will keep your promise not to look where this house is, so that you will never, never find me again? But, my dear, will you please believe that I am ver' ver' sorry, that I would like to see you many, many times before this stupid "good-bye." For it is not every day that people like you and I meet, we could laugh and cry so well together.... A long time ago, as we came into this house (and we came in because we had to come in, my Noël) I asked you if you were good at forgetting. But you have been such a dear that I now give you permission to remember—me! And that is the end of my vanity and your love affair, Don Noël, for now you must go away, out of the house into the night from which you came—oh, so wonderfully! Go—adieu, adieu.'
"And this time I did not turn round at the door, but went out of the room and out of the house, into the pale darkness of the early morning. The squat shape of the electric brougham was there, waiting on ice for me; but the bent figure of the man in the driving-seat seemed asleep, he certainly did not hear me until I was opening the door of the cab, when I gave him my direction. And I stepped in. The thing glided softly away, and I lay back and closed my eyes....
"I don't know how what I've told you has impressed you, I may indeed have made the thing seem farcical; it had begun as a—well—casual adventure, it had ended—ended! with me sitting back in her brougham, seriously, abjectly miserable! My feeling was one of deadly and unutterable flatness—just that. From my own lips had come a promise that I would let something go, something which I wanted more than anything else in the world, something which would never come back! I would never see her again! Everything but that one agonising certainty was in utter blankness. I was very flat, everything was grey....
"The brougham soon drew up at my door in Mount Street. I got out and stood by the footboard, rather absentmindedly fumbling in my pocket for a pound note to give to this obviously very confidential chauffeur. He was still huddled up in his seat, his peaked cap well over his eyes, his coat-collar turned up over half his face. Only his nose was really visible, and that dimly. I was vaguely staring at it as I picked out a note, a little piqued by the fellow's utter lack of interest in me. I had only stood there, say, four seconds or so; he hadn't looked at me once, wasn't even going to wait for the tip, for I saw that he was releasing the lever to move off—when suddenly, staring at that nose, I realised with a shock that I had seen it before. The car was almost in motion when I said, sharply, amazedly:
"'But you've shaved off your moustache!'
"The car stopped. The man deliberately got out, and stood on the pavement beside me. I am pretty tall, but he was even taller. I could see his face clearly now—yes, it was he! looking almost cadaverous without his sweeping moustachios, but still very distinguished. He was smiling at me, with a strange urbanity.
"'This is very awkward,' he said, or rather murmured; his accent and voice were distinctly foreign.