He sighed again—for the sixteenth time according to his sister’s calculation—then confessed to being “a bit worried,” but would not divulge what was the source of his trouble.
“Won’t you tell me what it is?” she urged. “Perhaps I could help you if I knew.”
He shook his head. “It’s a trouble for which there is no help,” he replied; and all her coaxing could elicit no more.
When he parted from her an hour later, he hailed a hansom and drove to Kensington, where he found the neighbourhood enveloped in fog. The cabman, unable to see his way clearly, had some difficulty in finding Cromwell Mansions; but after making a circuit of the whole district, eventually arrived at the destination he sought.
With a nervousness quite foreign to his disposition, Herbert paid the man and rang for the elevator. He had not chafed at the delay; quite the contrary, even though the fog were more or less unpleasant. He was going to see his wife, but what the result of that interview would be, he had not the slightest idea: his mind seemed a positive blank.
Arrived at the third floor, he pressed the electric bell, and was immediately admitted by a trim parlour-maid, who ushered him into an artistically furnished room of octagonal shape. An ugly pug, who lay coiled up on the hearthrug, was the only occupant, and greeted the visitor with a snarl. Herbert quieted it with a word; then, as the servant went to inform her mistress of his arrival, proceeded to look about him.
Some of the outside fog had penetrated within; and the only illumination was that obtained from an electric lamp, which, under a heavy golden shade formed to represent a daffodil, cast a subdued light over the room. As soon as his eyes had become accustomed to the dimness, he discovered that the appurtenances certainly suggested taste and refinement. Books, pictures, music, and the many dainty knick-knacks which women delight in, all these were there. Of the pictures, two he recognized as his own handiwork, painted at the time of his infatuation for Ninette. The sight of them brought back a host of recollections. Quite vividly he could see again his old studio overlooking the chimney-pots of Paris; and Ninette perched on the dais with her favourite poodle in her arms. In the next atelier there had lived a pianist, who shared the room with an artist brother, and practised Liszt’s fourteenth rhapsody energetically every day. Herbert could almost hear the crisp, dotted notes of that rhapsody now. It is strange how, in our minds, a certain musical phrase will persist in connecting itself with certain past events; and we can never think of the one without the other recurring to us also.
The creak of the door as it swung back on its hinges broke his reverie, and in another moment Ninette stood beside him. In the half light he could not see her very distinctly, but she was clad in a loose tea-gown trimmed with a profusion of ribbons and lace.
“Good morning,” she said as coolly as though his visit were of daily occurrence. “I hardly expected you in this fog. Won’t you sit down?”
He touched the tips of the fingers she held out as though the action almost hurt him.