I have to go home and pack. I'm going to
Southampton this afternoon.'
She began to move towards the door. Lord Dawlish, anxious to
follow, was detained by the fact that he had not yet paid the
bill. The production and settling of this took time, and when
finally he turned in search of Claire she was nowhere visible.
Bounding upstairs on the swift feet of love, he reached the
street. She had gone.
2
A grey sadness surged over Bill Dawlish. The sun hid itself behind
a cloud, the sky took on a leaden hue, and a chill wind blew
through the world. He scanned Shaftesbury Avenue with a jaundiced
eye, and thought that he had never seen a beastlier thoroughfare.
Piccadilly, however, into which he shortly dragged himself, was
even worse. It was full of men and women and other depressing
things.
He pitied himself profoundly. It was a rotten world to live in,
this, where a fellow couldn't say _noblesse oblige_ without
upsetting the universe. Why shouldn't a fellow say _noblesse
oblige?_ Why--? At this juncture Lord Dawlish walked into a
lamp-post.
The shock changed his mood. Gloom still obsessed him, but blended
now with remorse. He began to look at the matter from Claire's
viewpoint, and his pity switched from himself to her. In the first
place, the poor girl had rather a rotten time.
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