Her face worked.  She continued to look up at him, piteously.  The appalling truth came to him then, and that part of him which had remained detached and aloof, watching, almost smiled at the irony.  She cared for him.  Out of her memories she had built up something to care for, something no more himself than she was the woman of his dreams; but with this difference, that she was clinging, woman-fashion, to the thing she had built, and he had watched it crumble before his eyes.

“Will you promise to go and rest?”

“Yes.  If you say so.”

She was acquiescent and humble.  Her eyes were soft, faithful, childlike.

“I’ve suffered so, Jud.”

“I know.”

“You don’t hate me, do you?”

“Why should I?  Just remember this:  while you were carrying this burden, I was happier than I’d ever been.  I’ll tell you about it some time.”

She got up, and he perceived that she expected him again to take her in his arms.  He felt ridiculous and resentful, and rather as though he was expected to kiss the hand that had beaten him, but when she came close to him he put an arm around her shoulders.

“Poor Bev!” he said.  “We’ve made pretty much a mess of it, haven’t we?”

He patted her and let her go, and her eyes followed him as he left the room.  The elder brotherliness of that embrace had told her the truth as he could never have hurt her in words.  She went back to the chair where he had sat, and leaned her cheek against it.

After a time she went slowly upstairs and into her room.  When her maid came in she found her before the mirror of her dressing-table, staring at her reflection with hard, appraising eyes.

Leslie’s partner, wandering into the hotel at six o’clock, found from the disordered condition of the room that Leslie had been back, had apparently bathed, shaved and made a careful toilet, and gone out again.  Joe found himself unexpectedly at a loose end.  Filled, with suppressed indignation he commenced to dress, getting out a shirt, hunting his evening studs, and lining up what he meant to say to Leslie over his defection.

Then, at a quarter to seven, Leslie came in, top-hatted and morning-coated, with a yellowing gardenia in his buttonhole and his shoes covered with dust.

“Hello, Les,” Joe said, glancing up from a laborious struggle with a stud.  “Been to a wedding?”

“Why?”

“You look like it.”

“I made a call, and since then I’ve been walking.”

“Some walk, I’d say,” Joe observed, looking at him shrewdly.  “What’s wrong, Les?  Fair one turn you down?”

“Go to hell,” Leslie said irritably.

He flung off his coat and jerked at his tie.  Then, with it hanging loose, he turned to Joe.

“I’m going to tell you something.  I know it’s safe with you, and I need some advice.  I called on a woman this afternoon.  You know who she is.  Beverly Carlysle.”