She said: 

“Couldn’t.  Besides, I had to see if I could stand it.  Because I’ve got to stand it, G.J....  And, moreover, in our set it’s a sacred duty to be original.”

She snatched the telegram, tore it in two, and pushed the pieces back into her gown.

“‘Poor wounded name!’” she murmured, “’my bosom as a bed shall lodge thee.’”

The next moment she fell to the floor, at full length on her back.  G.J. sprang to her, kneeling on her rich, outspread gown, and tried to lift her.

“No, no!” she protested faintly, dreamily, with a feeble frown on her pale forehead.  “Let me lie.  Equilibrium has been established on the Western Front.”

This was her greatest mot.

Chapter 12

RENDEZVOUS

When the Italian woman, having recognised him with a discreet smile, introduced G.J. into the drawing-room of the Cork Street flat, he saw Christine lying on the sofa by the fire.  She too was in a tea-gown.

She said: 

“Do not be vexed.  I have my migraine—­am good for nothing.  But I gave the order that thou shouldst be admitted.”

She lifted her arms, and the long sleeves fell away.  G.J. bent down and kissed her.  She joined her hands on the nape of his neck, and with this leverage raised her whole body for an instant, like a child, smiling; then dropped back with a fatigued sigh, also like a child.  He found satisfaction in the fact that she was laid aside.  It was providential.  It set him right with himself.  For, to put the thing crudely, he had left the tragic Concepcion to come to Christine, a woman picked up in a Promenade.

True, Sara Trevise had agreed with him that he could accomplish no good by staying at Concepcion’s; Concepcion had withdrawn from the vision of men.  True, it could make no difference to Concepcion whether he retired to his flat for the rest of the day and saw no one, or whether, having changed his ceremonious clothes there, he went out again on his own affairs.  True, he had promised Christine to see her that afternoon, and a promise was a promise, and Christine was a woman who had behaved well to him, and it would have been impossible for him to send her an excuse, since he did not know her surname.  These apparently excellent arguments were specious and worthless.  He would, anyhow, have gone to Christine.  The call was imperious within him, and took no heed of grief, nor propriety, nor the secret decencies of sympathy.  The primitive man in him would have gone to Christine.