was even crying.

"Poor Nina!" he said to himself, little dreaming of the true state of
affairs. "I hope it isn't so? but if it is so, here have I, through mere
thoughtlessness, wounded her pride, and, what is more, interfered with
her professional career. I suppose she'll go right away back to old
Pandiani; and they'll be precious glad to get her now at Malta, after
her success in England. Perhaps some day we shall hear of her coming
over here again, as a famous star in grand opera; that will be her
revenge. But I never thought Nina would want to be revenged on me."

And yet he was uneasy; there was something in all this he did not
understand. He began to long for the coming of the next day, that he
might go away down to Sloane Street and hear what Miss Girond had to
tell him. Why, for example, he asked himself, had Nina taken this step
so abruptly--so entirely without warning? How and when had she made the
discovery that she had mistaken the intention of those friendly little
acts of kindness and his constant association with her? Then he tried to
remember on what terms he had last parted from her. It was at the
theatre, as he patiently summoned up each circumstance. It was at the
theatre, on the preceding night. She had come to him in the wings,
observing that he looked rather vexed, and she had given him comforting
and cheerful words, as was her wont. Surely there was no anger in her
mind against him then. But thereafter? Well, he had seen no more of
Nina. When Miss Cunyngham had come behind the scenes, he had forgotten
all about Nina. And then suddenly he remembered that he must have been
standing close by the prompter's box, absorbed in talking to Miss
Cunyngham, when Nina would have to come up to go on the stage. Had she
passed them? Had she suspected? Had she, in her proud and petted way,
resented this intimacy, and resolved to throw back to him the harmless
little gifts he had bestowed on her? Poor Nina! she had always been so
wilful--so easily pleased, so easily offended--but of late he had rather
forgotten that, for she had been bearing herself with what she regarded
as an English manner; and indeed their friendship had been so constant
and unvarying, so kind and considerate on both sides, that there had
been no opportunity for the half-vexed, half-laughing quarrels of
earlier days. He would seek out this spoiled child (he said to himself)
and scold her into being good again. And yet, even as he tried to
pe