"I'll write--or
see you again soon. Ellen, I'm sorry," he wound up, "but just at
present I can't change anything."
So Burton paid the bill and the tea-party was over. He saw them off as
far as the lift in Leicester Square Station, but Ellen never looked at
him again. He had a shrewd suspicion that underneath her veil she was
weeping. She refused to say good-bye and kept tight hold of Alfred's
hand. When they had gone, he passed out of the station and stood upon
the pavement of Piccadilly Circus. Side by side with a sense of
immeasurable relief, an odd kind of pain was gripping his heart.
Something that had belonged to him had been wrenched away. A wave of
meretricious sentiment, false yet with a curious base of naturalness,
swept in upon him for a moment and tugged at his heart-strings. She had
been his woman; the little boy with the sticky mouth was child of his.
The bald humanity of his affections for them joined forces for a moment
with the simple greatness of his new capacity. Dimly he realized that
somewhere behind all these things lurked a truth greater than any he had
as yet found. Then, with an almost incredible swiftness, this new
emotion began to fade away. His brain began to work, his new
fastidiousness asserted itself.
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