to me--that dark-red soup that you pour cream
into--Bortsch. I felt it would steady me. I raised the first spoonful to
my lips, and--my hand gave a sudden jerk.

'I was aware of two separate horrors--a horror that had been, a horror
that was. Braxton had vanished. Not for more than an instant had he
stood scowling at me from behind the opposite diners. Not for more than
the fraction of an instant. But he had left his mark on me. I gazed down
with a frozen stare at my shirtfront, at my white waistcoat, both dark
with Bortsch. I rubbed them with a napkin. I made them worse.

'I looked at my glass of champagne. I raised it carefully and drained
it at one draught. It nerved me. But behind that shirtfront was a broken
heart.

'The woman on my left was Lady Thisbe Crowborough. I don't know who was
the woman on my right. She was the first to turn and see me. I thought
it best to say something about my shirtfront at once. I said it to her
sideways, without showing my left cheek. Her handsome eyes rested on the
splashes. She said, after a moment's thought, that they looked "rather
gay." She said she thought the eternal black and white of men's
evening clothes was "so very dreary." She did her best.... Lady Thisbe
Crowborough did her best, too, I suppose; but breeding isn't proof
against all possible shocks: she visibly started at sight of me and my
Z. I explained that I had cut myself shaving. I said, with an attempt at
lightness, that shy men ought always to cut themselves shaving: it
made such a good conversational opening. "But surely," she said after a
pause, "you don't cut yourself on purpose?" She was an abysmal fool. I
didn't think so at the time. She was Lady Thisbe Crowborough. This fact
hallowed her. That we didn't get on at all well was a misfortune
for which I blamed only myself and my repulsive appearance and--the
unforgettable horror that distracted me. Nor did I blame Lady Thisbe for
turning rather soon to the man on her other side.

'The woman on my right was talking to the man on HER other side; so that
I was left a prey to secret memory and dread. I wasn't wondering, wasn't
attempting to explain; I was merely remembering--and dreading. And--how
odd one is!--on the top-layer of my consciousness I hated to be seen
talking to no one. Mr. Maltby at Keeb. I caught the Duchess' eye once
or twice, and she nodded encouragingly, as who should say "You do look
rather awful, and you do seem rather out of it, but I don'