'Take me away,' she said under her breath. 'Anywhere. Quick.'

It was no time to consider the etiquette of the ballroom. Tanky, startled at his sudden loneliness, seemed by his expression to be endeavouring to bring his mind to bear on the matter. A couple making for the door cut us off from him, and following them, we pa.s.sed out.

Neither of us spoke till we had reached the little room where I had meditated.

She sat down. She was looking pale and tired.

'Oh, dear!' she said.

I understood. I seemed to see that journey in the cab, those dances, those terrible between-dances ...

It was very sudden.

I took her hand. She turned to me with a tired smile. There were tears in her eyes ...

I heard myself speaking ...

She was looking at me, her eyes shining. All the weariness seemed to have gone out of them.

I looked at her.

There was something missing. I had felt it when I was speaking. To me my voice had had no ring of conviction. And then I saw what it was. There was no mystery. We knew each other too well. Friendship kills love.

She put my thought into words.

'We have always been brother and sister,' she said doubtfully.

'Till tonight.'

'You have changed tonight? You really want me?'

Did I? I tried to put the question to myself and answer it honestly. Yes, in a sense, I had changed tonight. There was an added appreciation of her fineness, a quickening of that blend of admiration and pity which I had always felt for her. I wanted with all my heart to help her, to take her away from her dreadful surroundings, to make her happy. But did I want her in the sense in which she had used the word? Did I want her as I had wanted Audrey Blake? I winced away from the question. Audrey belonged to the dead past, but it hurt to think of her.

Was it merely because I was five years older now than when I had wanted Audrey that the fire had gone out of me?

I shut my mind against my doubts.

'I have changed tonight,' I said.

And I bent down and kissed her.

I was conscious of being defiant against somebody. And then I knew that the somebody was myself.

I poured myself out a cup of hot coffee from the flask which Smith, my man, had filled against my return. It put life into me.

The oppression lifted.

And yet there remained something that made for uneasiness, a sort of foreboding at the back of my mind.

I had taken a step in the dark, and I was afraid for Cynthia. I had undertaken to give her happiness. Was I certain that I could succeed? The glow of chivalry had left me, and I began to doubt.

Audrey had taken from me something that I could not recover--poetry was as near as I could get to a definition of it. Yes, poetry.

With Cynthia my feet would always be on the solid earth. To the end of the chapter we should be friends and nothing more.

I found myself pitying Cynthia intensely. I saw her future a series of years of intolerable dullness. She was too good to be tied for life to a battered hulk like myself.

I drank more coffee and my mood changed. Even in the grey of a winter morning a man of thirty, in excellent health, cannot pose to himself for long as a piece of human junk, especially if he comforts himself with hot coffee.

My mind resumed its balance. I laughed at myself as a sentimental fraud. Of course I could make her happy. No man and woman had ever been more admirably suited to each other. As for that first disaster, which I had been magnifying into a life-tragedy, what of it? An incident of my boyhood. A ridiculous episode which--I rose with the intention of doing so at once--I should now proceed to eliminate from my life.

I went quickly to my desk, unlocked it, and took out a photograph.

And then--undoubtedly four o'clock in the morning is no time for a man to try to be single-minded and decisive--I wavered. I had intended to tear the thing in pieces without a glance, and fling it into the wastepaper-basket. But I took the glance and I hesitated.

The girl in the photograph was small and slight, and she looked straight out of the picture with large eyes that met and challenged mine. How well I remembered them, those Irish-blue eyes under their expressive, rather heavy brows. How exactly the photographer had caught that half-wistful, half-impudent look, the chin tilted, the mouth curving into a smile.

In a wave all my doubts had surged back upon me. Was this mere sentimentalism, a four-in-the-morning tribute to the pathos of the flying years, or did she really fill my soul and stand guard over it so that no successor could enter in and usurp her place?

I had no answer, unless the fact that I replaced the photograph in its drawer was one. I felt that this thing could not be decided now. It was more difficult than I had thought.

All my gloom had returned by the time I was in bed. Hours seemed to pa.s.s while I tossed restlessly aching for sleep.

When I woke my last coherent thought was still clear in my mind.

It was a pa.s.sionate vow that, come what might, if those Irish eyes were to haunt me till my death, I would play the game loyally with Cynthia.

II

The telephone bell rang just as I was getting ready to call at Marlow Square and inform Mrs Dra.s.silis of the position of affairs.

Cynthia, I imagined, would have broken the news already, which would mitigate the embarra.s.sment of the interview to some extent; but the recollection of my last night's encounter with Mrs Dra.s.silis prevented me from looking forward with any joy to the prospect of meeting her again.

Cynthia's voice greeted me as I unhooked the receiver.

'Hullo, Peter! Is that you? I want you to come round here at once.'

'I was just starting,' I said.

'I don't mean Marlow Square. I'm not there. I'm at the Guelph. Ask for Mrs Ford's suite. It's very important. I'll tell you all about it when you get here. Come as soon as you can.'

My rooms were conveniently situated for visits to the Hotel Guelph. A walk of a couple of minutes took me there. Mrs Ford's suite was on the third floor. I rang the bell and Cynthia opened the door to me.

'Come in,' she said. 'You're a dear to be so quick.'

'My rooms are only just round the corner.' She shut the door, and for the first time we looked at one another. I could not say that I was nervous, but there was certainly, to me, a something strange in the atmosphere. Last night seemed a long way off and somehow a little unreal. I suppose I must have shown this in my manner, for she suddenly broke what had amounted to a distinct pause by giving a little laugh. 'Peter,' she said, 'you're embarra.s.sed.' I denied the charge warmly, but without real conviction. I was embarra.s.sed.

'Then you ought to be,' she said. 'Last night, when I was looking my very best in a lovely dress, you asked me to marry you. Now you see me again in cold blood, and you're wondering how you can back out of it without hurting my feelings.'

I smiled. She did not. I ceased to smile. She was looking at me in a very peculiar manner.

'Peter,' she said, 'are you sure?'