RTIER."

Her cheeks burned, quick sighs escaped her lips; she read the letter
again, but before getting to the end could not see the words for mist.
If in that letter there had been a word of complaint or even of regret!
She could not let him go like this, without good-bye, without any
explanation at all. He should not think of her as a cold, stony flirt,
who had been merely stealing a few weeks' amusement out of him. She
would explain to him at all events that it had not been that. She would
make him understand that it was not what he thought--that something in
her wanted--wanted----! Her mind was all confused. "What was it?" she
thought: "What did I do?" And sore with anger at herself, she screwed
the letter up in her glove, and ran out. She walked swiftly down to
Piccadilly, and crossed into the Green Park. There she passed Lord
Malvezin and a friend strolling up towards Hyde Park Corner, and
gave them a very faint bow. The composure of those two precise and
well-groomed figures sickened her just then. She wanted to run, to fly
to this meeting that should remove from him the odious feelings he must
have, that she, Barbara Caradoc, was a vulgar enchantress, a common
traitress and coquette! And his letter--without a syllable of reproach!
Her cheeks burned so, that she could not help trying to hide them from
people who passed.

As she drew nearer to his rooms she walked slower, forcing herself to
think what she should do, what she should let him do! But she continued
resolutely forward. She would not shrink now--whatever came of it! Her
heart fluttered, seemed to stop beating, fluttered again. She set her
teeth; a sort of desperate hilarity rose in her. It was an adventure!
Then she was gripped by the feeling that had come to her on the roof.
The whole thing was bizarre, ridiculous! She stopped, and drew the
letter from her glove. It might be ridiculous, but it was due from
her; and closing her lips very tight, she walked on. In thought she was
already standing close to him, her eyes shut, waiting, with her heart
beating wildly, to know what she would feel when his lips had spoken,
perhaps touched her face or hand. And she had a sort of mirage vision
of herself, with eyelashes resting on her cheeks, lips a little parted,
arms helpless at her sides. Yet, incomprehensibly, his figure was
invisible. She discovered then that she was standing before his door.

She rang the bell calmly, but instead of dropping her hand, p