reason was given for the
inability. She had not considered it necessary to give him a reason.
When she had gone abroad without letting him know he had said to himself
that his brief friendship with her had come to an end. He felt that more
acutely now. For she had come back from abroad. She was close to him
in London. She had tried him again. Evidently she must have found him
wanting. For once more she was giving him up. Perhaps he was too young.
Perhaps he bored her. He did not know.

"I don't suppose I shall ever know."

To that conclusion he came at last. And the sense of finality grew in
him, cold and inexorable. She was a mystery to him. He did not love
her. He had never thought of her as she had thought of him. He had never
known or suspected what her feelings for him had been. But he felt that
something which might have meant a good deal, even perhaps a great deal,
to him was being withdrawn from his life. And this withdrawal hurt him
and saddened him.

He locked up her letter in his dispatch box. It would be a souvenir of a
friendship which had seemed to promise much and which had ended abruptly
in mystery. He did not answer it. Perhaps, probably, he would have done
so but for the last two sentences in it.

CHAPTER IX

After Lady Sellingworth had written and sent her note to Craven she felt
that she was facing a new phase of life, and she thought of it as the
last phase. Her sacrifice of self was surely complete at last. She
had exposed her nature naked to Beryl Van Tuyn. She had given up her
friendship with Alick Craven. There was nothing more for her to do. The
call of youth had wrung from her a response which created loneliness
around her. And now she had to find within herself the resolution to
face this loneliness bravely.

When she wrote to Craven she had meant him to understand something of
what he had understood. Yet she did not desire to hurt him. She would
not have hurt him for the world. Secretly her heart yearned over him.
But she could never let him know that. He might be puzzled by her
letter. He might even resent it. But he would soon forget any feeling
roused by it. And he would no doubt soon forget her, the old woman who
had been kind to him for a time, who had even been almost Bohemian with
him in a very mild way, and who had then tacitly given him up. Perhaps
she would see him again. Probably she would. She had no intentions of
permanently closing her door against him. But she would