“Well, I can see you have changed your mind; so we are not going away together.  Evelyn, dear, is it not so?  Tell me.”

He was a little ashamed of his hypocrisy, for, as he had driven home in the dogcart, the adventure he was engaged in had appeared to him under every disagreeable aspect.  He could not but think that the truth of the story would leak out, and he could hear all the women he knew speaking of Evelyn as a girl he had picked up in the suburbs—­an organist’s daughter.  He had thought again of the responsibility that going away with this girl imposed upon him, and he had come to the conclusion that it would be wiser to drop the whole thing and get out of it while there was time.  That night, as he lay in bed, he saw himself telling people how many operas she knew; and the tales of her successes in Vienna and Naples....  But he need not always be with her, she would have a chaperon; and he had fallen asleep thinking which among his friends would undertake the task for him.  In the morning he had awakened in the same nervous indecision, and had gone to Dulwich disheartened, provoked at his own folly.  It therefore happened that her refusal to go away with him coincided exactly with his humour.  So all that was necessary was a mere polite attempt to persuade her that she was sacrificing her career, but without too much insistence on the point; a promise to call again soon; then a letter saying he was unwell, or was going to Paris or to Riversdale.  A month after they could meet at a concert, but he must be careful not to be alone with her, and very soon the incident—­after all, he had only kissed her—­would be forgotten.  But as he sat face to face with her, all his carefully considered plans seemed to drop behind him in ruins, and he doubted if he would be able to deny himself the pleasure of taking her away.  That is to say, if he could induce her to go, which no longer seemed very sure.  She might be one of those women in whom the sense of sin was so obdurate that they could not but remain virtuous.

But of what was she thinking? he asked himself; and he scanned the yielding face, reading the struggle in a sudden suppressed look or nervous twitching of the lips.

“Dearest Evelyn, I love you.  Life would be nothing without you.”

“Owen, I am very fond of you, but there would be no use in my going away with you.  I should be miserable.  I know I am not the kind of woman who would play the part.”

Her words roused new doubts.  It would be useless to go away with her if she were to be miserable all the while.  He did not want to make anyone miserable; he wanted to make people happy.  He indulged in a moment of complacent self-admiration, and then reflected that this adventure would cost a great deal of time and money, and if he were really to get nothing out of it but tears and repentance, he had better take her at her word, bid her good-bye, and write to-morrow saying he was called away to Riversdale on business.