(4)
He took train to town, engaged a room for the night at the Grosvenor as being the nearest hotel, and took a taxi to her flat. Two at a time he mounted the stairs; damn the lift. He knocked. "Come in," she called.
It was eight o'clock and the lights were on, of course. She was sitting alone in an easy-chair by the fire, clad in a loose simple dress of a rich deep orange that became her well. She was reading, and looked up almost expectantly from her book at his knock. A little fire leaped in the grate, and the room was still, familiar, kind. She smiled enquiringly as she saw him. "Why, Paul," she said.
Paul moved slowly over to her, closing the door behind him. On the rug before the fire, he came to a standstill, looking down into her upturned face with its clear unafraid open eyes, set in its ring of black hair, taking in her regular definite features, her white throat. She smiled at him again as he stood there, tenderly.
"Ursula, Ursula!" he cried, took a hasty step forward, dropped on his knees before her, and buried his face in the kindly flame of her dress.
She reached a hand out and laid it on his head, stroking his hair. For a little neither moved. Then: "I understand, Paul," she said without more words; "I thought it might be so. Your face told me last night."
He looked up. "You're very wonderful," he said slowly. "How could you guess? But it's not only my people, Ursula. That, of course, was just too terrible. Father simply drove me out. Not a word of explanation would he allow. It happened so quickly, too; at first I hardly understood.... But I think it was worse afterwards when I did. Edith has gone to be a nun."
"Edith?"
"Yes." (Words came quicker now.) "Of course you don't know about her though. I was in love with her. Ursula, she was such a dear. Somehow or another I see now what I've lost, desolatingly. Do you know—of course, it sounds absurd—but in my mind she is, as it were, in the balance against the theatre. She was so different. She was so unspoilt, so simple, so loving. Oh, she was a dear, Ursula. And she's gone to be a nun, and it was I who made her."
"You who made her?"