'Very well, then. We understand each other and there is nothing so
very terrible in my being at the Imperium. Is there?'
He held her hand. She wanted him to draw her to him, to hold her close
to him, to comfort him for all that he had lost; but once again he was
governed by his humility, and he just bowed low, and thanked her warmly
for her generosity in giving so poor a devil as himself so exquisite a
day.
Nothing was said about another meeting. As he took her down the stairs
the door of the flat below was opened and a woman's face peeped out.
Near the bottom of the stairs they met a man in a tail coat and top hat
who sidled past them, took off his hat and held it in front of his
face, but before he did so Clara had recognised Mr Cumberland,
erstwhile Mr Clott.
'Does that man live here?' she asked Rodd at the door.
Rodd looked up the stairs.
'No-o,' he said. 'No. I think I have seen him before, but there are
many people living in the house. Strange people. They come and go,
but I sit there in my room upstairs gazing at the tree-tops,
working....'
'You should get in touch with the theatre,' said Clara; 'swallow your
scruples, and find out that we are not so very bad after all.'
They stood for some moments on the wide doorstep. It was night now and
the lamps were lit. Lovers strolled by under the trees, and against
the railings of the garden opposite couples were locked together.
'You turn an August day into Spring,' said Rodd.
Clara tapped his hand affectionately, and, to tear herself away, ran
down the square and round the corner. She was quivering in every nerve
from the strain of so much conflict, and she was angry with herself for
having taken so high a hand with him. He was more to be respected than
any man she had ever met, and yet she had--or so she thought--treated
him as though he were another Charles. She could not measure the
immensity of what had happened to her and her thoughts flew to
practical details. What ages it seemed since she had walked blithely
crooning: 'This is me in London!' And how odd, how menacing, it was
that on the stairs she should have met Mr Clott or Cumberland!