"Ah, Peter," said I, "what HAVE you done? ..."
PETER: "I know ... it's quite true; but I've broken it off for
ever with her."
Nothing he could have said then would have lightened my heart.
I scribbled, "Yes," on the same paper and gave it back to the
girl.
When I said good night to my mother that night after the opera, I
told her where I was going. Peter was standing in the front hall
and took me in a hansom to the lady's house, saying he would wait
for me round the corner while I had my interview with her.
It was past midnight and I felt overpoweringly tired. My beautiful
rival opened the front door to me and I followed her silently up
to her bedroom. She took off my opera-cloak and we sat down facing
each other. The room was large and dark but for a row of candles
on the mantel-piece and two high church-lights each side of a
silver pier-glass. There was a table near my chair with odds and
ends on it and a general smell of scent and flowers. I looked at
her in her blue satin nightgown and saw that she had been crying.
"It is kind of you to have come," she said, "and I daresay you
know why I wanted to see you to-night."
MARGOT: "No, I don't; I haven't the faintest idea!"
THE LADY (LOOKING RATHER EMBARRASSED, BUT AFTER A MOMENT'S PAUSE):
"I want you to tell me about yourself."
I felt this to be a wrong entry: she had sent for me to tell her
about Peter Flower and not myself; but why should I tell her about
either of us? I had never spoken of my love-affairs excepting to
my mother and my three friends--Con Manners, Frances Horner, and
Etty Desborough--and people had ceased speaking to me about them;
why should I sit up with a stranger and discuss myself at this
time of night? I said there was nothing to tell.
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