“I have given my message,” he declared.  “I shall tell her what you say.  Perhaps I had better go now.”

He half rose to his feet.  Suddenly she lost control of herself.

“Leonard, Leonard,” she cried, “don’t you see that you are being very foolish indeed?  You have been good to me.  Let me try and repay it a little.  Elizabeth is my sister, but listen!  What I say to you now I say in deadly earnest.  Elizabeth has no heart, she has no thought for other people, she makes use of them and they count for no more to her than the figures that pass through one’s dreams.  She has some sort of hateful gift,” Beatrice continued, and her voice shook and her eyes flashed, “some hateful gift of attracting people to her and making them do her bidding, of spoiling their lives and throwing them away when they have ceased to be useful.  Leonard, you must not let her do this with you.”

He rose to his feet awkwardly.  Very likely it was all true, and yet, what difference did it make?

“Thank you,” he said.

They stood, for a moment, hand in hand.  Then they heard the sound of a key in the lock.

“Here’s Annie coming back!” Beatrice exclaimed.

Tavernake was introduced to Miss Annie Legarde, who thought he was a very strange person indeed because he did not fit in with any of the types of men, young or old, of whom she knew anything.  And as for Tavernake, he considered that Miss Annie Legarde would have looked at least as well in a hat half the size, and much better without the powder upon her face.  Her clothes were obviously more expensive than Beatrice’s, but they were put on with less care and taste.

Beatrice came out on to the landing with him.

“So you won’t marry me, Beatrice?” he said, as she held out her hand.

She looked at him for a moment and then turned away with a faint sob, without even a word of farewell.  He watched her disappear and heard the door shut.  Slowly he began to descend the stone steps.  There was something to him a little fateful about the closed door above, the long yet easy descent into the street.

CHAPTER XVII

THE BALCONY AT IMANO’S

At six o’clock that evening, Tavernake rang up the Milan Court and inquired for Elizabeth.  There was a moment or two’s delay and then he heard her reply.  Even over the telephone wires, even though he stood, cramped and uncomfortable, in that stuffy little telephone booth, he felt the quick start of pleasure, the thrill of something different in life, which came to him always at the sound of her voice, at the slightest suggestion of her presence.

“Well, my friend, what fortune?” she asked him.

“None,” he answered.  “I have done my best.  Beatrice will not listen to me.”

“She will not come and see me?”

“She will not.”

Elizabeth was silent for a moment.  When she spoke again, there was a change in her tone.