"
Suddenly he became unaccountably petulant, he dropped her hand. "It's
always like this. We are happy. _I_ am happy. And then--then you are
taken away...."
There was a silence of mute interrogations.
"Dear," she whispered, "we must wait."
A moment's pause. "_Wait_!" he said, and broke off. He
hesitated. "Good-bye," he said as though he was snapping a thread that
held them together.
CHAPTER XVI.
MISS HEYDINGER'S PRIVATE THOUGHTS.
The way from Chelsea to Clapham and the way from South Kensington to
Battersea, especially if the former is looped about a little to make
it longer, come very near to each other. One night close upon
Christmas two friends of Lewisham's passed him and Ethel. But Lewisham
did not see them, because he was looking at Ethel's face.
"Did you see?" said the other girl, a little maliciously.
"Mr. Lewisham--wasn't it?" said Miss Heydinger in a perfectly
indifferent tone.
* * * * *
Miss Heydinger sat in the room her younger sisters called her
"Sanctum." Her Sanctum was only too evidently an intellectualised
bedroom, and a cheap wallpaper of silvery roses peeped coquettishly
from among her draped furniture. Her particular glories were the
writing-desk in the middle and the microscope on the unsteady
octagonal table under the window.
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