"Go on, Cissy."
"She is one of those who must be appealed to, at first, by her imagination. She married our father because she thought he was lonely and misunderstood."
"I am lonely and misunderstood," said Adrian, his eyes flashing with delight.
"Ah, not twice! She doesn't like that now."
I finished my coffee slowly, and then I said,
"Go to the Clives' fancy-ball as Tristan."
Adrian pressed my hand. . . .
At the door of the restaurant we parted, and I drove home through the cool April night, wondering, wondering. Suddenly I thought of my mother—my beautiful sainted mother, who would have loved me, I am convinced, had she lived, with an extraordinary devotion. What would she have said to all this? What would she have thought? I know not why, but a mad reaction seized me. I felt recklessly conscientious. My father! After all, he was my father. I was possessed by passionate scruples. If I went back now to Adrian—if I went back and implored him, supplicated him never to see Laura again!
I felt I could persuade him. I have sufficient personal magnetism to do that, if I make up my mind. After one glance in the looking-glass, I put up my stick and stopped the hansom. I had taken a resolution. I told the man to drive to Adrian's rooms.
He turned round with a sharp jerk. In another second a brougham passed us—a swift little brougham that I knew. It slackened—it stopped—we passed it—I saw my father. He was getting out at one of the little houses opposite the Brompton Oratory.
"Turn round again," I shouted to the cabman. And he drove me straight home.
