The naturally unobservant
Charles divined a cause and, looking for it, he saw with a shock of
surprise and horror the tall figure of a man at the end of the street.
She was hastening towards him.
Charles stood stock-still. A man! He had not thought of that, he had
positively never thought of it! Nor had he guessed at his capacity for
jealousy and anger. Then this was why Rose Mallett had sent him on
this mission: it was a man's work, and in the confusion of his
feelings he still had time to wish he had spent more of his youth in
the exercise of his muscles. He braced himself for an encounter, but
already Henrietta had swerved aside. This was not the man she was to
meet; her expectation had misled her; but the acute Charles surmised
that the man she looked for would also be tall and slim.
Tall and slim; he repeated the words so that he should make no
mistake, but subconsciously they had roused memories and instead of
that little black figure hurrying on in front of him, he saw a young
woman clothed in yellow, entering from the frosty night, with
brilliant half veiled eyes, and by the side of her was Francis Sales.
Again he stood still, as much in amazement at his own folly as in any
other feeling. Francis Sales, the fellow who could dance, who murdered
music and little birds! And he had a wife! Charles was not shocked. If
Henrietta had wished to elope with a great musician, wived though he
might be, Charles could have let her go, subduing his own pangs, not
for her own sake but for that of a man more important than himself,
but he would not yield the claims of his devotion to Francis Sales.
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