At the table next to us sat a solitary gentleman. Obviously, we thought, he is waiting for some one, and obviously that some one has let him down. I am not much of a connoisseur as to men’s looks, but Shelmerdene knows about these things, and she said he was handsome. He was, even as he sat, noticeably tall; of strong and manly appearance; and, though swarthy in countenance, so essentially English-looking that it was with a disagreeable shock that, towards midnight, we noticed that his dark eyes were wet with tears. There is, as a rule, a scarcity of six-foot men weeping over supper at the Ambassadors.
“Drunk,” I suggested harshly, but Shelmerdene is a kind woman and she said that he looked like a man haunted by a great calamity.
“That’s all very well,” I said, “but one doesn’t cry about things.” Whereupon Shelmerdene looked at me, those wide and wise and witty eyes looked full at me—men have drowned themselves in Shelmerdene’s eyes—and I saw laughter at all men playing in their dusky-blue depths; and I had to confess to those kind, mocking eyes, that I, Ralph Wyndham Trevor, had also wept, that I had sobbed like a child, and that a woman had seen me at it—the woman who had caused it.
“Exactly,” said Shelmerdene. “For the more virile a man is, the braver and the more adventurous a man is, the more likely he is to weep before a woman and generally make a fool of himself. Fetch me that handsome man, Ralph. Men in love are not generally very reticent, especially Englishmen in love. The reticence of Englishmen is as much an illusion as the good manners of Frenchmen. I am curious. Fetch me that handsome man, Ralph.”
I leant over to the table beside us. The tall, dark young man turned moist, absent-minded eyes upon me.
“Sir,” I said, “forgive this unpardonable intrusion. But my companion and I have observed your solitude, no doubt temporary, and would be delighted if you would join us in a glass of wine.”
“You are very kind,” said the tall, dark young man.
He refused, with a courtly gesture, to take my seat on the sofa beside Shelmerdene, but sat on a chair opposite us. I filled him a glass of champagne.
“Sir,” said he, “your health. And yours, madam.”
But still the tears did not leave those dark, tragic eyes, they smouldered darkly in them. He looked infinitely wretched, though he bravely tried to smile as he addressed Shelmerdene: