Chapter 6 - Page 2

clasping your knees and talking about
"starving"--in this particular street in Mayfair, led one to ask
oneself what one was walking into. Feather herself had not known,
in fact neither had any other human being known, that there was
a special reason why he had drifted into seeming rather to allow
her about--why he had finally been counted among the frequenters
of the narrow house--and why he had seemed to watch her a good
deal sometimes with an expression of serious interest--sometimes
with an air of irritation, and sometimes with no expression at
all. But there existed this reason and this it was and this alone
which had caused him to appear upon her threshold and it had also
been the power which had prevented his disengaging himself with
more incisive finality when he found himself ridiculously clasped
about the knees as one who played the part of an obdurate parent
in a melodrama.

Once in the familiar surroundings of her drawing-room her ash-gold
blondness and her black gauzy frock heightened all her effects
so extraordinarily that he frankly admitted to himself that she
possessed assets which would have modified most things to most
men.

As for Feather, when she herself beheld him against the background
of the same intimate aspects, the effect of the sound of his voice,
the manner in which he sat down in a chair and a certain remotely
dim hint in the hue of his clothes and an almost concealed note of
some touch of colour which scarcely seemed to belong to anything
worn--were so reminiscent of the days which now seemed past forever
that she began to cry again.

He received this with discreet lack of melodrama of tone.

"You mustn't do that, Mrs. Lawless," he said, "or I shall burst
into tears myself. I am a sensitive creature."

"Oh, DO say 'Feather' instead of Mrs. Lawless," she implored.
"Sometimes you said 'Feather'."

"I will say it now," he answered, "if you will not weep. It is an
adorable name."

"I feel as if I should never hear it again," she shuddered, trying
to dry her eyes. "It is all over!"

"What is all over?"

"This--!" turning a hopeless gaze upon the two tiny rooms crowded
with knick-knacks and nonsense. "The parties and the fun--and
everything in the world! I have only had some biscuits and raisins
to eat today--and the landlord is going to turn me out."

It seemed almost too preposterous to quite credit that she was
uttering naked truth.--And yet--! After a second's gaze at her be
repeated what he had said below stairs.

"Will you tell me exactly what you mean?"

Then he sat still and