or overcoat, he took the letter which he found propped up on the
mantelpiece and addressed to him to the window and read it.

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 p