An anxious lover is always a fool. He would have no delay, he must know. It was a choice—a challenge to fate. If she took him it must be altogether. She was too young to understand. Sybil was tortured by indecision. How, owing eighty pounds, could she go to her friend and say, I will not ride your horse—I will not dine with you. How could she hurt him?
"Sybil, I thought you cared," a hoarse voice roused her.
"I believe I do. Oh, Oliver, give me time."
"No!" he was going away, leaving next morning. "I cannot share you, Sybil. Oh, friendship. Don't prate of that to me, but, if you want me, send for me. If I can ever help, write or wire. I'll go on loving you as long as I'm alive. As you don't care enough I can go."
He flung out bruised and hurt.
Was it chance or design which had made Jimmie Gore Helmsley talk that day of the worries of a soldier's life.
"Kicked about, never enough money, poky houses, a rattling two-seater, or a dogcart, a dog's life for a pretty woman," Jimmie had said lightly. "Stuck in some wretched country town or in some big station where the dust reeks of the army. I've pitied so many girls who have married soldiers. Think of your beauty now thrown away." And all the time as young Knox pleaded Sybil had recalled these words.
Esmé went back to London next day, back to her little flat.
A bleak wind swept along the streets, dark clouds raced across the sky. It was dreary, intensely cold, the flat was poky, its cosiness seemed to have deserted it, it had become a tawdry box. The furniture looked shabby, worn, the tenants had been careless. Esmé stood discontentedly pulling at her cushions, petulantly moving back china to old places. Her servants were new, inclined to be lazy. The cook looked blankly unenthusiastic as to lunch.
"Couldn't possibly have all that in time to-day, mem. They'd send round something from Harrod's, no doubt."