‘D——­ the play!’ cried Wallace vigorously, a sentiment to which perhaps Kendal’s silence gave consent.  ’But I cannot let it rest there.  I must write to her.’

‘I don’t think I would, if I were you,’ said Kendal.  ’I should let it alone.  She looks upon the matter as finished.  She told me particularly to tell you that she was not vexed, and you may be quite sure that she isn’t, in any vulgar sense.  Perhaps that makes it all the worse.  However, you’ve a right to know what happened, so I’ll tell you, as far as I remember.’

He gave an abridged account of the conversation, which made matters a little clearer, though by no means less uncomfortable, to Wallace.  When it was over, they were nearing Vigo Street, the point at which their routes diverged, Wallace having rooms in the Albany, and Kendal hailed a hansom.

‘If I were you,’ he said, as it came up, ’I should, as I said before, let the thing alone as much as possible.  She will probably speak to you about it, and you will, of course, say what you like, but I’m pretty sure she won’t take up the play again, and if she feels a coolness towards anybody, it won’t be towards you.’

‘There’s small consolation in that!’ exclaimed Wallace.

‘Anyhow, make the best of it, my dear fellow,’ said Kendal, as though determined to strike a lighter key.  ’Don’t be so dismal, things will look differently to-morrow morning—­they generally do—­there’s no tremendous harm done.  I’m sorry I didn’t do your bidding better.  Honestly, when I come to think over it, I don’t see how I could have done otherwise.  But I don’t expect you to think so.’

Wallace laughed, protested, and they parted.

A few moments later Kendal let himself into his rooms, where lights were burning, and threw himself into his reading-chair, beside which his books and papers stood ready to his hand.  Generally, nothing gave him a greater sense of bien-etre than this nightly return, after a day spent in society, to these silent and faithful companions of his life.  He was accustomed to feel the atmosphere of his room when he came back to it charged with welcome.  It was as though the thoughts and schemes he had left warm and safe in shelter there started to life again after a day’s torpor, and thronged to meet him.  His books smiled at him with friendly faces, the open page called to him to resume the work of the morning—­he was, in every sense, at home.  Tonight, however, the familiar spell seemed to have lost its force.  After a hasty supper he took up some proofs, pen in hand.  But the first page was hardly turned before they had dropped on to his knee.  It seemed to him as if he still felt on his arm the folds of a green, fur-edged cloak, as if the touch of a soft cold hand were still lingering in his.  Presently he fell to recalling every detail of the afternoon scene,—­the arching beech trees, the rich red and brown of the earth beneath, tinged with the winter sheddings of the trees, the little raised bank, her eyes as she looked up at him, the soft wisps of her golden brown hair under her hat.  What superb, unapproachable beauty it was! how living, how rich in content and expression!