“Oh!” she drew a long breath. “It has made me alive again.”
“Well, on the whole, it is good to be alive. Why not come to next Monday’s concert? You’ll hear Tristan und Isolde then. Magnificent.”
“I oughtn’t to; I shall have piles of books to correct next Monday, but I will.”
“Do. I shall look out for you. I’m going to the orchestra again. I shall have to lay in a stock of Wagner sensations varied enough to last me some time. While I cross the desert, and drop leisurely down the Nile, and afterwards, when I’m in the mysterious East, which, however, recks not of Wagner.”
“You are going to travel?” Bridget asked. His words had called up vague pictures of dazzling skies, of white roofs clear cut against the blue, of wide horizons, and the glitter of strange streams. She seemed to look out upon it all from prison bars.
“Yes, I start for Algiers to-morrow week. It will be a year or two before I see this city of dreadful night again, most probably.”
They were in the Strand now. Bridget was silent as they turned into the station yard. She was too tired, too oddly dispirited to reply.
He went with her past one of the swing doors, up to the booking office, when they reached the station.
Then she started, as though roused from a dream. She put out her hand a little shyly.
“Thank you so much,” she said. “You have been so kind. Perhaps, then, I shall see you next Monday?”