"I'd never have come to you if I'd thought you'd merely
think odious things of me!" The tears came into her eyes.

"Do you never flirt?" he asked.

"Of course I don't," she protested. "Haven't I told you? I want
friendship; I want to care for some one greater and nobler than I am,
and if they fall in love with me it isn't my fault; I don't want it; I
positively hate it."

Hewet could see that there was very little use in going on with the
conversation, for it was obvious that Evelyn did not wish to say
anything in particular, but to impress upon him an image of herself,
being, for some reason which she would not reveal, unhappy, or insecure.
He was very tired, and a pale waiter kept walking ostentatiously into
the middle of the room and looking at them meaningly.

"They want to shut up," he said. "My advice is that you should tell
Oliver and Perrott to-morrow that you've made up your mind that you
don't mean to marry either of them. I'm certain you don't. If you
change your mind you can always tell them so. They're both sensible men;
they'll understand. And then all this bother will be over." He got up.

But Evelyn did not move. She sat looking up at him with her bright eager
eyes, in the depths of which he thought he detected some disappointment,
or dissatisfaction.

"Good-night," he said.

"There are heaps of things I want to say to you still," she said. "And
I'm going to, some time. I suppose you must go to bed now?"

"Yes," said Hewet. "I'm half asleep." He left her still sitting by
herself in the empty hall.

"Why is it that they _won't_ be honest?" he muttered to himself as he
went upstairs. Why was it that relations between different people were
so unsatisfactory, so fragmentary, so hazardous, and words so dangerous
that the instinct to sympathise with another human being was an instinct
to be examined carefully and probably crushed? What had Evelyn really
wished to say to him? What was she feeling left alone in the empty
hall? The mystery of life and the unreality even of one's own sensations
overcame him as he walked down the corridor which led to his room. It
was dimly lighted, but sufficiently for him to see a figure in a bright
dressing-gown pass swiftly in front of him, the figure of a woman
crossing from one room to another.

Chapter XV

Whether too slight or too vague the ties that bind people casually
meeting in a hotel at midnight, they possess one advantage at least over
the bo