as a fact she had met few who did....  She would have liked to beautify her flat for Gilbert, but in the first place she did not wish to spend money on it, in the second place she was too indolent to buckle to the enterprise, and in the third place if she beautified it she would be doing so not for Gilbert, but for the monotonous procession of her clients.  Her flat was a public resort, and so she would do nothing to it.  Besides, she did not care a fig about the look of furniture; the feel of furniture alone interested her; she wanted softness and warmth and no more.

She moved across to the piano, remembering that she had not practised that day, and that she had promised Gilbert to practise every day.  He was teaching her.  At the beginning she had dreamt of acquiring brilliance such as his on the piano, but she had soon seen the futility of the dream and had moderated her hopes accordingly.  Even with terrific efforts she could not make her hands do the things that his did quite easily at the first attempt.  She had, for example, abandoned the Rosenkavalier waltz, having never succeeded in struggling through more than about ten bars of it, and those the simplest.  But her French dances she had notably improved in.  She knew some of them by heart and could patter them off with a very tasteful vivacity.  Instead of practising, she now played gently through a slow waltz from memory.  If the snoring man was wakened, so much the worse—­or so much the better!  She went on playing, and evening continued to fall, until she could scarcely see the notes.  Then she heard movements in the bedroom, a sigh, a bump, some English words that she did not comprehend.  She still, by force of resolution, went on playing, to protect herself, to give herself countenance.  At length she saw a dim male figure against the pale oblong of the doorway between the two rooms, and behind the figure a point of glowing red in the stove.

“I say—­what time is it?”

She recognised the heavy, resonant, vibrating voice.  She had stopped playing because she was making so many mistakes.

“Late—­late!” she murmured timidly.

The next moment the figure was kneeling at her feet, and her left hand had been seized in a hot hand and kissed—­respectfully.

“Forgive me, you beautiful creature!” begged the deep, imploring voice.  “I know I don’t deserve it.  But forgive me!  I worship women, honestly.”

Assuredly she had not expected this development.  She thought:  “Is he not sober yet?” But the query had no conviction in it.  She wanted to believe that he was sober.  At any rate he had removed the absurd towels from his boots.

Chapter 18

THE MYSTIC

“Say you forgive me!” The officer insisted.

“But there is nothing—­”

“Say you forgive me!”

She had counted on a scene of triumph with him when he woke up, anticipating that he was bound to cut a ridiculous appearance.  He knelt dimly there without a sign of self-consciousness or false shame.  She forgave him.