III: CONSUELO
III: CONSUELO
AS far as I could see in the dim light of the Hallidays' hall, whose house in Cheyne Walk I was just that moment leaving after one of their too crowded and rather tiresome parties, the owner of the voice which had asked me from the stairs if I was walking "Mayfair way" was of about my age, too near fifty, and of a genial and polished air, rare in these days of careless manners and—can one say it?—mannered carelessness; the sort of man who had long since overcome his shyness on meeting strangers, and, at a glance, seemed without that wretched self-consciousness which so gets between a man and his power to entertain; altogether, a cultivated and comfortable person, I thought.
But I am afraid that I was not in the best of tempers that night; for as we walked away from the house I made very little attempt to justify my companion's courteous invitation to share the walk. We had turned into the King's Road on our way Eastward before his talk, which had almost died down in the face of my wretched monosyllables, abruptly began again with:—
"A tragic pity, that Carew business!"
At that I quite woke up.
"What! Did you know her?" I asked, and immediately felt ashamed of my complete boorishness.