I knew, as well as if I had seen him do it, that as soon as he was down the steps, he threw the flowers which had been meant for me out into the street.
Had he struck me across the face with his stick, he could not have branded me with a more distinctive mark of ignominy—he, a waiter! The charm of it was, that no one showed the slightest sign of resenting his behaviour. I was speechless. I had anticipated some difficulty with my tongue, but in the presence of that sublimity of insult, it refused to do its office altogether. My confusion was rendered worse confounded by the horrible embarrassment of the men by whom I found myself confronted. Their astonishment at the personality which my entrance had discovered—in such bewildering contrast to the glorious being of whom they had dreamed—was evidently so great as to be beyond their capacity of concealment. It not only robbed them of their senses, but also of their manners. They offered me no sort of greeting, not acknowledging my presence by a word or movement, but could only stand and stare and gasp, probably anathematising themselves internally for the crassness of their folly.
Those well-bred gentlemen!
The continued silence became so hideous that it had to be broken, even though I had to break it myself. I could not stay there and petrify before their stony gaze. It cost me a severe muscular spasm to break loose from the trammels of the sort of tetanus by which I was afflicted. And when I did the result was ludicrously inadequate. My intention was to be garrulous, a lava stream of words. All I could say was this:
“You don’t want me. I needn’t stay.”
It was true, the concentrated essence of truth. But as an illustration of the resources of the English language, it seemed hardly equal to the occasion. It was such a stupid, such an uncouth, thing to say—so utterly in character. The consciousness that this was so—that I was, by the decree of nature, a stupid, uncouth, gawky idiot—was the last straw. I turned to make my way out of the room as best I could.
My turning woke, at least, one of the gentlemen to some sense of the requirements of his position—the brown man. He had shown himself, last night, to be the owner of considerable stores of presence of mind; he proved, now, that he possessed some remnants still—even though they were, as remnants are apt to be, of somewhat dubious quality. Advancing a half-step towards where I was, he checked me in my retreat.
“Pardon me, one moment, Miss O’Brady.” I was not Miss O’Brady. I longed, even then, to tell him so. But, fortunately, I did manage to refrain. “I am here to offer you my apologies.” I was perfectly sure that he had come there with no intention of the kind. “I fear that last night I behaved with scant discretion. I frightened you. I think I must have been a little off my head. I beg that it is in that light that you will regard the singularity of my conduct; and can now only assure you that I am ready to lay at your feet my excuses, my regrets, my confession of misbehaviour, in any form you may command.”
He did not seem to see that his words, which were more than a little artificial, were not so much an apology as a fresh offence. He had made love to me because he was a little off his head, had he? What a compliment, under the circumstances, the idea conveyed. I should have liked to have pinched him, or done something more emphatic still, and, perhaps, something more undignified. Instead of which I merely replied, with an awkward clumsiness of which I was only too keenly sensitive:
“Pray, don’t apologise! It doesn’t matter in the least.”