"I'm jolly glad now I ordered a dozen! A stroke of luck meeting Charlie like that..." He referred to a school friend of narrow means who had lately entered a wine merchant's business and had run against Stephen in the street and parted from him with an order.
He filled his glass up with water—the grocer had flatly refused to deliver further syphons to his credit—and, on his way back to the table, he paused for a moment thoughtfully to study his pale face in the glass.
"I wonder?" He smiled at the reflection, smoothing back his sleek hair.
"You never know ... I've a mind to try it!—Women are queer kittle-cattle. It's just on the cards she'd rise to it. Anyhow, it can do no harm."
He sat down, drank thirstily, then took up his pen and with knit brows.
"Dear Mrs. Uniacke," he began at the top of a plain sheet of paper. (No date and no address; he was not without a certain method!)
"Will you excuse my dining with you? I'm so sorry and disappointed, but the fact is I am faced to-night with harassing business of my own and really quite unfit for company.
"For some time past I've longed to tell you of all these painful worries of mine. You're so awfully kind and understanding..."
He broke off and drained his glass.
"She'll like that—they always do!" then picked up his pen again.