thoughts were occupying all his attention. He pleaded business soon, and the two men parted with cordiality.
Half an hour later Trent was in his studio, swiftly and mechanically 'cleaning up'. He wanted to know what had happened; somehow he must find out. He could never approach herself, he knew; he would never bring back to her the shame of that last encounter with him; it was scarcely likely that he would even set eyes on her. But he must get to know! . . . Cupples was in London, Marlowe was there. . . . And, anyhow, he was sick of Paris.
Such thoughts came and went; and below them all strained the fibres of an unseen cord that dragged mercilessly at his heart, and that he cursed bitterly in the moments when he could not deny to himself that it was there. The folly, the useless, pitiable folly of it!
In twenty-four hours his feeble roots in Paris had been torn out. He was looking over a leaden sea at the shining fortress-wall of the Dover cliffs.
But though he had instinctively picked out the lines of a set purpose from among the
