Dear brother Leonard,—­It wasn’t your fault and I don’t think it was mine.  If either of us is to blame, it is certainly I, for though you are such a clever and ambitious young person, you really know very little indeed of the world,—­not so much, I think, as I do.  I am going to stay for a few nights, at any rate, with one of the girls at the theatre, who I know wants some one to share her tiny flat with her.  Afterwards, I shall see.

Don’t throw this letter in the fire and don’t think me ungrateful.  I shall never forget what you did for me.  How could I?

I will send you my address as soon as I am sure of it, or you can always write me to the theatre.

                Good-bye, dear Leonard,
                                        your sister Beatrice.

Tavernake looked from the sheet of notepaper out across the gray square.  He knew that he was very angry, angry though he deliberately folded the letter up and placed it in his pocket, angry though he took off his overcoat and hung it up with his usual care; but his anger was with himself.  He had blundered badly.  This episode of his life was one which he had better forget.  It was absolutely out of harmony with all his ideas.  He told himself that he was glad Beatrice was gone.  Housekeeping with an imaginary sister in this practical world was an absurdity.  Sooner or later it must have come to an end.  Better now, before it had gone too far—­better now, much better!  All the same, he knew that he was going to be very lonely.

He rang the bell for the woman who waited upon them, and whom he seldom saw, for Beatrice herself had supplied their immediate wants.  He found some dinner ready, which he ate with absolute unconsciousness.  Then he threw himself fiercely into his work.  It was all very well for the first hour or so, but as ten o’clock grew near he began to find a curious difficulty in keeping his attention fixed upon those calculations.  The matter of average rentals, percentage upon capital—­things which but yesterday he had found fascinating—­seemed suddenly irksome.  He could fix his attention upon nothing.  At last he pushed his papers away, put on his hat and coat, and walked into the street.

At the Milan Court, the hall-porter received his inquiry for Elizabeth with an air of faint but well-bred surprise.  Tavernake, in those days, was a person exceedingly difficult to place.  His clothes so obviously denoted the station in life which he really occupied, while the slight imperiousness of his manner, his absolute freedom from any sort of nervousness or awkwardness, seemed to bespeak a consideration which those who had to deal with him as a stranger found sometimes a little puzzling.

“Mrs. Wenham Gardner is in her rooms, I believe, sir,” the man said.  “If you will wait for a moment, I will inquire.”

He disappeared into his office, thrusting his head out, a moment or two later, with the telephone receiver still in his hand.