In a
day or two I am off to the country."
Things had just been restored to peace and happiness--Clare had just
proposed that they should go, that afternoon, to a Private View
together--they might go and have tea with--
For an instant he was tempted to abandon Norah. Then his courage came:--
"Here's a note from Miss Monogue," he said. "She's awfully ill I think, I
ought--"
Clare's face hardened again. She got up from the table--
"Just as you please--" she said.
He climbed on to the omnibus that was to stumble with him down Piccadilly
with a. hideous, numbing sense of being under the hand of Fate. Why, at
this moment, in all time, should this letter of Norah Monogue's have made
its unhappy appearance? With what difficulty and sorrow had he and Clare
reached once more a reconciliation only, so wantonly, to be plucked away
from it again! From the top of his omnibus he looked down upon a sinister
London. It was a heavy, lowering day; thick clouds like damp cloths came
down upon the towers and chimneys. The trees in the Green Park were black
and chill and in and out of the Clubs figures slipped cautiously and it
seemed furtively. Just beyond the Green Park they were building a vast
hotel, climbing figures and twisting lines of scaffolding pierced the air,
and behind the rolling and rattling of the traffic the sound of many
hammers beat rhythmically, monotonously.
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