Throughout those weeks and months of tangled, lurid
sensations, of amazing happenings which were yet to
come, Norgate never once forgot that illuminative
rush of fierce yet sweet feelings which suddenly thrilled
his pulses. He understood in that moment the intolerable
depression of the last few days. He realised
the absolute advent of the one experience hitherto
missing from his life. The very intensity of his
feelings kept him silent, kept him unresponsive to
her impetuous but unspoken welcome. Her arms
dropped to her side, her lips for a moment quivered.
Her voice, notwithstanding her efforts to control
it, shook a little. She was no longer the brilliant
young Court beauty of Vienna. She was a tired
and disappointed girl.
“You are surprised—I should not have
come here! It was such a foolish impulse.”
She caught up her gloves feverishly, but Norgate’s
moment of stupefaction had passed. He clasped
her hands.
“Forgive me,” he begged. “It
is really you—Anna!”
His words were almost incoherent, but his tone was
convincing. Her fears passed away.
“You don’t wonder that I was a little
surprised, do you?” he exclaimed. “You
were not only the last person whom I was thinking of,
but you were certainly the last person whom I expected
to see in London or to welcome here.”
“But why?” she asked. “I told
you that I came often to this country.”
“I remember,” Norgate admitted. “Yet
I never ventured to hope—”
“Of course I should not have come here,”
she interrupted. “It was absurd of me,
and at such an hour! And yet I am staying only
a few hundred yards away. The temptation to-night
was irresistible. I felt as one sometimes does
in this queer, enormous city—lonely.
I telephoned, and your servant, who answered me, said
that you were expected back at any moment. Then
I came myself.”
“You cannot imagine that I am not glad to see
you,” he said earnestly.
“I want to believe that you are glad,”
she answered. “I have been restless ever
since you left. Tell me at once, what did they
say to you here?”
“I am practically shelved,” he told her
bitterly. “In twelve months’ time,
perhaps, I may be offered something in America or Asia—countries
where diplomacy languishes. In a word, your mighty
autocrat has spoken the word, and I am sacrificed.”
She moved towards the window.
“I am stifled!” she exclaimed. “Open
it wide, please.”
He threw it open. They looked out eastwards.
The roar of the night was passing. Here and there
were great black spaces. On the Thames a sky-sign
or two remained. The blue, opalescent glare from
the Gaiety dome still shone. The curving lights
which spanned the bridges and fringed the Embankment
still glittered. The air, even here, high up as
they were on the seventh story of the building, seemed
heavy and lifeless.
