Page:When It Was Dark.djvu/273

Rh to a small flat in New Bond Street. He hardly ever visited his wife now. The flat in Bloomsbury Court Mansions had been given up when Gertrude Hunt had gone.

In New Bond Street Sir Robert lived alone. A house-keeper in the basement of the buildings looked after his rooms and his valet slept above.

The new pied à terre was furnished with great luxury. It was not the garish luxury and vulgar splendour of Bloomsbury Court — that had been the dancer's taste. Here Llwellyn had gathered round him all that could make life pleasant, and his own taste had seen to everything.

As he sat alone, slightly recovered from the nervous shock of the dinner, but in an utter depression of spirits, his thoughts once more went back to his lost mistress.

It was in times like these that he needed her most. She would distract him, amuse him, where a less vulgar, more intellectual woman would have increased his boredom.

He sighed heavily, pitying himself, utterly unconscious of his degradation. The books upon the shelves, learned and weighty monographs in all languages, his own brilliant contributions to historical science among them, had no power to help him. He sighed for his rowdy Circe.

The electric bell of the flat rang sharply outside in the passage. His man was out, and he rose to answer it himself.

A friend probably had looked him up for a drink and smoke. He was glad; he wanted companionship, easy, genial companionship, not that pale devil Schuabe, with his dreary talk and everlasting reminder.

He went out into the passage and opened the front door. A woman stood there.