And when eventually they did arrive in Edgeware Road, she could not induce him to enter the house and have some bit of supper with herself and her brother Jim.

“What are you going to do to-morrow, then?” she asked.  “Will you call for me in the morning and go to church with me?”

“I don’t think I shall stir out to-morrow,” he said, “I feel rather out of sorts; and I fancy I may try what a day in bed will do.”

“How can you expect to be well if you sit up all night playing cards?” she demanded, with reason on her side.  “However, there’s to be no more of that now.  So you won’t come in—­not for a quarter of an hour?”

She rang the bell.

“Oh, Lionel, by the way, do you think Jim should know?” she asked, with her eyes cast down in maiden modesty.

“Just as you like,” he answered.

“Why, you don’t seem to take any interest!” she exclaimed, with a pout.  “I wonder what Percy Miles will say when he hears of it.  Oh, my goodness, I’m afraid to think!”

“What he will say won’t matter very much,” Lionel remarked, indifferently.

“Poor boy!  I’m sorry for him,” she said, apparently with a little compunction, perhaps even regret.

The door was opened by her brother.

“Sure you won’t come in?” she finally asked.  “Well, I shall be at home all to-morrow afternoon, if you happen to be up in this direction.  Good-night!”

“Good-night,” said he, taking her outstretched hand for a second; then he turned and walked away.  There had not been much love-making—­so far.

But he did not go straight to his lodgings.  He wandered away aimlessly through the dark streets.  He felt sick at heart—­not especially because of this imbroglio into which he had walked with open eyes, for that did not seem to matter much, one way or the other.  But everything appeared to have gone wrong with him since Nina had left; and the worst of it was that he was gradually ceasing to care how things went, right or wrong.  At this moment, for example, he ought to have been thinking of the situation he had created for himself, and resolving either to get out of it before more harm was done, or to loyally fulfil his contract by cultivating what affection for Miss Burgoyne was possible in the circumstances.  But he was not thinking of Miss Burgoyne at all.  He was thinking of Nina.  He was thinking how hard it was that whenever his fancy went in search of her—­away to Malta, to Australia, to the United States, as it might be—­he could not hope to find a Nina whom he could recognize.  For she would be quite changed now.  His imagination could not picture to himself a Nina grown grave and sad-eyed, perhaps furtively hiding her sorrow, fearing to encounter her friends.  The Nina whom he had always known was a light-hearted and laughing companion, eagerly talkative, a smile on her parted lips, affection, kindliness ever present in her shining, soft, dark eyes.  Sometimes silent, too; sometimes, again, singing a fragment of one of the old familiar folk-songs of her youth.  What was that one with the refrain, “Io te voglio bene assaje, e tu non pienz’ a me"?—­