“I shall be very glad to,” she said.

In her mind was no unfaithfulness to the memory of Traill.  Unfaithful, even to a slender memory, it was not in her nature to be.  The benefit of the Church now was the only door through which she could pass out of his life.  She considered no likelihood of it; for, in common with those of her sex in whom the strong waters of emotion run deep in the vein of sentiment, she felt—­being once possessed by him—­that he was the lord of her life.

“But I warn you,” she added, with a pathetic smile, “I shan’t be good company.  You’ll have to do all the talking.  You’ll have to make all the jokes.”

“I’m prepared to do as much and more,” he said lightly.

“Then you must wait while I put on my hat.  Play the piano—­can you?”

“No—­not I. Can you?”

“Yes—­just a little.”

“Sing?”

“Yes—­sometimes.”

“Ah, that settles it.  We come back here after dinner, and you sing every song in your repertoire.”

She laughed brightly at his enthusiasm.  “You’re really fond of music?” she said.

“Yes, passionately.  And I suffer little for my passion because I know absolutely nothing about it.  That’s a promise, then?  You’ll sing to me after dinner?”

“Yes, I should love to.”

So much had her spirits lifted in this deceptive atmosphere of diversion that Devenish even heard her humming a tune in the other room.  And he smiled, looking up to the ceiling with hands spread out and fingers lightly playing one upon the other.

At a restaurant in Great Portland Street, shut off from the rest of the room by the astute arrangement of a screen—­ranged around every table, presumably to ward off the draught—­they dined in comparative seclusion.  Into the selection of that dinner Devenish put a great part of his ingenuity.  The man who knows how to choose a meal and savour those intervals between the courses with anecdote, has reached a high-water mark of social excellence.  Devenish was the type.  He was not hampered with the possession of intelligence.  Wit he had, but it was not his own.  The man, after all, who can echo the wit of others and suit its application to the moment is a man of no little accomplishment.  The least that can be said of him is that he is worthy of his place at a dinner-table where conversation is as empty as the bubbles that shoot through the glittering wine to the frothy surface.  To suffer from intelligence in such an atmosphere as this is a disease—­the silent sickness—­of which such symptoms as the lips tight bound, the heart heavy, and an aching void behind the eyes, are common to all its victims.  Later, in the course of its development, if the attack is acute, comes the forced speech from lips now scarcely opened—­forced speech recognizable by its various degrees of imbecility.  The man, for instance, who asks you if you have been to a theatre lately when you have just deftly foisted upon the company the latest joke you heard in a musical comedy, has reached that stage of the disease when retirement is the only cure.  Like quinine in fever districts, there is one drug which may ward off the icy fingers of the complaint—­champagne—­but it should be administered at frequent intervals.