For the second time she avoided meeting his eves as she left the room.
Tallente stood on the hearth-rug, still looking at the closed door
through which she had vanished, puzzled, a little chilled. He gave his
order to the attentive butler who presently appeared and who looked at
him with covert interest,--the Press had been almost hysterically
prodigal of his name during the last few weeks. Then he settled down to
wait for her return with an impatience which became almost
uncontrollable. It seemed to him, as he paced restlessly about, that
this little apartment, which he remembered so well, had in a measure
changed, was revealing a different atmosphere, as though in sympathy
with some corresponding change in its presiding spirit. There was a
huge and well-worn couch, smothered with cushions and suggestive of a
comfort almost voluptuous; a large easy-chair, into which he presently
sank, of the same character. The wood logs burning in the grate gave
out a pleasant sense of warmth. He took more particular note of the
volumes in the well-filled bookcases,--volumes of poetry, French novels,
with a fair sprinkling of modern English fiction. There was a plaster
cast of the Paris Magdalene over the door and one or two fine point
etchings, after the style of Heillieu, upon the walls. There was no
writing table in the room, nor any signs of industry, but a black oak
gate-table was laden with magazines and fashion papers. Against the
brown walls, a clump of flaming yellow gorse leaned from a distant
corner, its faint almond-like fragrance mingling aromatically with the
perfume of burning logs and a great bowl of dried lavender. More than
ever it seemed to Tallente that the atmosphere of the room had changed,
had become in some subtle way at the same time more enervating and more
exciting. It was like a revelation of a hidden side of the woman, who
might indeed have had some purpose of her own in leaving him here. He
set down his empty glass with the feeling that vermouth was a heavier
drink than he had fancied. Then a streak of watery sunshine filtered