"Oh, nothing," Gilbert replied. "I was only saying you seemed very friendly with Cecily!"
"Well, yes, I suppose I am, but not more than most people. Are you going to bed now or will you wait up for Ninian and Roger?"
"I shan't sleep if I go to bed ... I'm too excited. I shall read for a while in my room ... unless you'd like to jaw a bit!"
Henry shook his head. "No," he said, "I'm too tired to jaw to-night. See you in the morning. Good-night, Gilbert!"
"Good-night, Quinny!"
Henry went to his bedroom, leaving Gilbert in the hall, and began to undress. His mind was full of a flat rage against Cecily. She had consented to meet him in St. James's Park, and then, almost as she had made her promise, she had turned to Gilbert and had invited him to call on her, in his company, at the time she had appointed for his private meeting with her. He did not wish to see her again. "She's fooling me," he said, throwing his coat on to a chair so that it fell on to the ground where he let it lie. "I've not done a stroke of work for days on her account, and she cares no more for me than she does for ... for anybody. I won't go and meet her to-morrow, damn her! I'll send a messenger to say I can't come, and then I'll drop her. It isn't worth while going through this ... this agony for a woman who doesn't care a curse for you!"
"I'm not going to be treated like this," he went on to himself while he brushed his teeth. "I'm not going to hang about her and let her treat me as she pleases. She can get somebody else, some one who is more complacent than I am, and doesn't feel things. I hope she goes to the Park and waits for me. Perhaps that'll teach her to understand what a man feels like...."
But of course she would not go to the Park and wait for him. He would send an express messenger with a note to tell her that he was unable to keep the appointment.
"I'll write it now," he said to himself and he stopped in the middle of washing his face and hands to find notepaper. "Damn, my hands are wet," he said aloud, and picked up a towel.
"Dear Lady Cecily," he wrote, when he was dry, using the formal address because he wished to let her know that he was ill friends with her, "I am sorry I shall not be able to meet you to-day as we arranged last night." He wondered what excuse he should make for breaking off the appointment, and then decided that he would not make any. "I won't add anything else," he said, and he signed himself, "Yours sincerely, Henry Quinn." "She'll know that I'm sick of this ... messing about. I don't see why I should explain myself to her!"