“Well, I must say,” he declared, “that this has been a most delightful evening.  I feel immensely better, and you, too, I hope, Beatrice?”

She nodded, smiling.

“I trust that when Mr. Tavernake returns,” the professor continued, “he will give us the opportunity of entertaining him in much the same manner.  It will give me very much pleasure, also Beatrice.  And if, sir,” he proceeded, “during your stay in New York you will mention my name at the Goat’s Club, or the Mosquito Club, you will, I think, find yourself received with a hospitality which will surprise you.”

Tavernake thanked him and paid the bill.  They walked slowly down the room, and Tavernake was curiously reluctant to release the little hand which clasped his.

“I have kept this to the last,” Beatrice said, in a low tone.  “Elizabeth is in London.”

He was curiously unmoved.

“Yes?” he murmured.

“I should like you—­I think it would be well for you to go and see her,” she went on.  “You know, Leonard, you were such a strange person in those days.  You may imagine things.  You may not realize where you are.  I think that you ought to go and see her now, now that you have lived through some suffering, now that you understand things better.  Will you?”

“Yes, I will go,” Tavernake promised.

Beatrice glanced round towards where her father was standing.

“I don’t want him to know,” she whispered.  “I don’t want either him or myself to be tempted to take any of her money.  She is living at Claridge’s Hotel.  Go there and see her before you leave for your new life.”

He stood at the door and watched them go down the Strand, the professor, flamboyant, walking erect with flying coat-tails, and his big cigar held firmly between his teeth; Beatrice, a wan figure in her black clothes, clinging to his arm.  Tavernake watched them until they disappeared, conscious of a curious excitement, a strange pain, a sense of revelation.  When at last they were out of sight and he turned back for his coat and hat, his feet were suddenly leaden.  The band was playing the last selection—­it was the air which Beatrice had sung only that night at the east-end music-hall.  With a sudden overpowering impulse he turned and strode down the Strand in the direction where they had vanished.  It was too late.  There was no sign of them.

CHAPTER VI

UNDERSTANDING COMES TOO LATE

Tavernake’s first impression of Elizabeth was that he had never, even in his wildest thoughts, done her justice.  He had never imagined her so wonderfully, so alluringly beautiful.  She had received him, after a very long delay, in her sitting-room at Claridge’s Hotel—­a large apartment furnished more like a drawing-room.  She was standing, when he entered, almost in the center of the room, dressed in a long lace cloak and a hat with a drooping black feather.  She looked at him, as the door opened, as though for a moment half puzzled.  Then she laughed softly and held out her hands.