How strange the feeling—­with the die once cast for love—­of rushing, of watching his own self being left behind!

In the Brompton Road, outside a little restaurant, a thin musician was playing on a violin.  Ah! and he knew this place; he would go in there, not to the Club—­and the fiddler should have all he had to spare, for playing those tunes of love.  He turned in.  He had not been there since the day before that night on the river, twenty years ago.  Never since; and yet it was not changed.  The same tarnished gilt, and smell of cooking; the same macaroni in the same tomato sauce; the same Chianti flasks; the same staring, light-blue walls wreathed with pink flowers.  Only the waiter different—­ hollow-cheeked, patient, dark of eye.  He, too, should be well tipped!  And that poor, over-hatted lady, eating her frugal meal—­ to her, at all events, a look of kindness.  For all desperate creatures he must feel, this desperate night!  And suddenly he thought of Oliver.  Another desperate one!  What should he say to Oliver at this dance—­he, aged forty-seven, coming there without his wife!  Some imbecility, such as:  ’Watching the human form divine in motion,’ ’Catching sidelights on Nell for the statuette’—­ some cant; it did not matter!  The wine was drawn, and he must drink!

It was still early when he left the restaurant—­a dry night, very calm, not cold.  When had he danced last?  With Olive Cramier, before he knew he loved her.  Well, that memory could not be broken, for he would not dance to-night!  Just watch, sit with the girl a few minutes, feel her hand cling to his, see her eyes turned back to him; and—­come away!  And then—­the future!  For the wine was drawn!  The leaf of a plane-tree, fluttering down, caught on his sleeve.  Autumn would soon be gone, and after Autumn—­only Winter!  She would have done with him long before he came to Winter.  Nature would see to it that Youth called for her, and carried her away.  Nature in her courses!  But just to cheat Nature for a little while!  To cheat Nature—­what greater happiness!

Here was the place with red-striped awning, carriages driving away, loiterers watching.  He turned in with a beating heart.  Was he before her?  How would she come to this first dance?  With Oliver alone?  Or had some chaperon been found?  To have come because she—­ this child so lovely, born ’outside’—­might have need of chaperonage, would have been some comfort to dignity, so wistful, so lost as his.  But, alas! he knew he was only there because he could not keep away!