Towards the end of dinner, the head waiter interrupted their conversation.  He lingered about the table, anxious to hear something of Lord Ascott’s two-year-olds; but, in the smoking-room over their coffee, they returned to the more vital question—­the sentimental affections.  They were agreed that the pleasure of love is in loving, not in being loved, and their reasons were incontrovertible.

“It is the letters,” said Harding, “that we write at three in the morning to tell her how enchanting she was; it is the flowers we send, the words of love that we speak in her ear, that are our undoing.  So long as we are indifferent, they love us.”

“Quite true.  At first I did not care for her as much as she did for me, and I noticed that as soon as I began to fall in love—­”

“To aspire, to suffer.  Maybe there is no deep pleasure in contentment.  In casting you out she has given you a more intense life.”

Owen did not seem to understand.  His eye wandered, then returning to Harding, he said—­

“We cannot worship and be worshipped; is that what you mean?  If so, I agree with you.  But I’d sooner lose her as I have done than not have told her that I loved her....  There never was anyone like her.  Sympathy, understanding, appreciation and enthusiasm! it was like living in a dream.  Good God! to think that that priest should have got her; that, after all my teaching, she should think it wrong to have a lover!  I don’t know if you know of whom we are speaking.  If you suspect, I can’t help it, but don’t ask me.  I shouldn’t speak of her at all; it is wrong to speak of her, even though I don’t mention her name, but it is impossible to help it.  If you are proud of a woman you must speak of her—­and I was so proud of her.  It is very easy to be discreet when you are ashamed of them,” he added, with a laugh.  “When I had nothing to do, I used to sit down and think of her, and I used to say to myself that if I were the king of the whole world I could not get anything better.  But it is all over now.”

“Well, you’ve had six years, the very prime of her life.”

“That’s true; you’re very sympathetic, Harding.  Have another cigarette.  I was faithful to her for six years—­you can’t understand that, but it is quite true, and I had plenty of chances, but, when I came to think of it, it always seemed that I liked her the best.”

At the same moment Evelyn stood on her balcony, watching the evening.  The park was breathless, and the sky rose high and pale, and calm as marble.  But the houses seemed to speak unutterable things, and she closed the window and stood looking across the room.  Then walking towards the sofa as if she were going to sit down, she flung herself upon it and buried her face among the cushions.  She lay there weeping, and when she raised her face she dashed the tears from her streaming cheeks, but this pause was only the prelude to another passionate outbreak, and she wept again, finding in tears fatigue, and in fatigue relief.  She sobbed until she could sob no more, and so tired was she that she no longer cared what happened; very tired, and her head heavy, she went upstairs, eager for sleep.  And closing her eyes she felt a delicious numbing of sense, a dissolution of her being into darkness....