Sally, yearning in her heart for one more sight of Traill, the putting to the touch of her last hope, and then crushing out the desire into an apparent oblivion, was trapped, deceived, outwitted by such subtle suggestions as that she had been thwarted in her determination of sacrifice.

At the bottom of Waterloo Place, she hesitated.  He had said he would wait half an hour.  She would be back almost immediately if she returned at once.  Her steps took her onwards down Pall Mall, but they were slower and more measured than before.  At the Carlton Restaurant, she stopped again.  She wanted to give him back the bangle herself; to tell him herself how utterly she knew it was at an end.  She could write, certainly; she could send the little box by post.  She had said she would.  But a romance, the only romance she had ever had in her life, to end through the tepid medium of the post—­the letter dropped in through the black and gaping slit—­just the one moment’s thrill that now he must get it!  Then, nothing; then, emptiness and the end.  She wanted more than that.  She would cry, perhaps, break down when she saw him put it aside where she could never touch it again.  But what were tears?  They were better than nothing; better than the hollowness of such an end as the writing of a letter would bring.

With half-formed decision, she turned up Haymarket instead of crossing towards Trafalgar Square and so, slowly, by indecisive steps, she found herself, some ten minutes later, once more knocking gently upon Traill’s door.

The sound from within, as he jumped to his feet, set her heart beating through the blood, and though she steadied herself, her lips were trembling as he opened and made way for her to enter.

She walked straight into the room, did not turn until she heard him close the door; even then, she refused to let her eyes meet his in a direct gaze.  This was not easy for, having once shut the door, he stood with his back to it, looking intently at her as if, securing her at last, he would not willingly let her free.

“What made you come?” he asked, slowly—­“and, having come—­then, why on earth did you go away?  In the last few minutes before you arrived, I almost began to think that you weren’t coming back again.”

She tried to hide her nervousness by taking off her gloves, but her fingers fumbled at the buttons, and in her awkwardness the seam of one of the fingers slit from top to bottom.  She looked at it ruefully; was about to make use of the incident to lessen the tension of the moment when he came across to her.  Standing in front of her, he looked down at the broken glove, and her white skin laid bare by the rent stitching.

“You’ll let me get you a new pair,” he said under his breath.  In that instant he wanted to give her the world.  The proffer of the gloves tried to express the sensation.