There was a moment when the two currents of sensation were merged in one, and he began to feel confusedly that he was young and she was kind, and that there was nothing he would like better than to go on sitting there, not much caring what she said or how he answered, if only she would let him look at her and give him one of her thin brown hands to hold.  Then the corkscrew in the back of his head dug into him again with a deeper thrust, and she seemed suddenly to recede to a great distance and be divided from him by a fog of pain.  The fog lifted after a minute, but it left him queerly remote from her, from the cool room with its scents and shadows, and from all the objects which, a moment before, had so sharply impinged upon his senses.  It was as though he looked at it all through a rain-blurred pane, against which his hand would strike if he held it out to her...

That impression passed also, and he found himself thinking how tired he was and how little anything mattered.  He recalled the unfinished piece of work on his desk, and for a moment had the odd illusion that it was there before him...

She exclaimed:  “But are you going?” and her exclamation made him aware that he had left his seat and was standing in front of her...  He fancied there was some kind of appeal in her brown eyes; but she was so dim and far off that he couldn’t be sure of what she wanted, and the next moment he found himself shaking hands with her, and heard her saying something kind and cold about its having been so nice to see him...

Half way up the stairs little Paul, shining and rosy from supper, lurked in ambush for his evening game.  Ralph was fond of stooping down to let the boy climb up his outstretched arms to his shoulders, but to-day, as he did so, Paul’s hug seemed to crush him in a vice, and the shout of welcome that accompanied it racked his ears like an explosion of steam-whistles.  The queer distance between himself and the rest of the world was annihilated again:  everything stared and glared and clutched him.  He tried to turn away his face from the child’s hot kisses; and as he did so he caught sight of a mauve envelope among the hats and sticks on the hall table.

Instantly he passed Paul over to his nurse, stammered out a word about being tired, and sprang up the long flights to his study.  The pain in his head had stopped, but his hands trembled as he tore open the envelope.  Within it was a second letter bearing a French stamp and addressed to himself.  It looked like a business communication and had apparently been sent to Undine’s hotel in Paris and forwarded to him by her hand.  “Another bill!” he reflected grimly, as he threw it aside and felt in the outer envelope for her letter.  There was nothing there, and after a first sharp pang of disappointment he picked up the enclosure and opened it.

Inside was a lithographed circular, headed “Confidential” and bearing the Paris address of a firm of private detectives who undertook, in conditions of attested and inviolable discretion, to investigate “delicate” situations, look up doubtful antecedents, and furnish reliable evidence of misconduct—­all on the most reasonable terms.