It was nearly twelve months before he heard again from Miss Tarrant.
Then one day she wrote and asked him to come and have tea with her
at her flat in Lexham Gardens.
He went. His entrance coincided with the departure of Laurence
Furnival and a lady whom Philippa introduced to him as Mrs.
Laurence, whom, she said, he would remember under another name.
Furnival's wife was younger than ever and more like Nora Viveash and
more different. When the door closed on them Philippa turned to him
with her radiance (the least bit overdone).
"_I_ made that marriage," she said, and staggered him.
"Surely," he said, "it was made in heaven."
"If this room is heaven. It was made here, six months ago."
She faced him with all his memories. With all his memories and her
own she faced him radiantly.
"You know now," she said, "_why I did it_. It was worth while,
wasn't it?"
His voice struggled with his memories and stuck. It stuck in his
throat.
Before he left he begged her congratulations on a little affair of
his own; a rather unhappy affair which had ended happily the week
before last. He did not tell her that, if it hadn't been for the
things dear Fanny Brocklebank had done for him, the way she had
mixed herself up with his unhappy little affair, it might have ended
happily a year ago.
"But," said Philippa, "how beautiful!"
He never saw Miss Tarrant again. Their correspondence ceased after
his marriage, and he gathered that she had no longer any use for
him.