They met in that same Italian restaurant in the Strand to which Humphrey had first taken her on that day, months ago, when the glamour was upon him. The proprietor knew them for more or less regular customers, and they always had the upstairs room, which was invariably empty.
This dreadful business of the waiter taking his hat and stick, setting the table in order, offering the menus, and recommending things, with a greasy smile, and knowing, dark eyes! They had to mask their feelings, and to play the old part, and pretend that they were going to have lunch.
She noticed that Humphrey's face was pale, the lines about his mouth less soft than usual. His eyes were strained, and he looked at her wistfully, not quite sure of his ground, wondering whether there would be a scene.
She could read him thoroughly. She knew that he really felt mean and uncomfortable, that she had but to use her woman-wit to recapture him at once--snare him so completely that never could he escape again. She knew that the very sight of her weakened him in his resolve, a kiss on the lips, and her fingers stroking his hair and face, he was hers, and the world well lost for him.
But that was not Lilian's way. A strange, deep feeling of pity was in her heart as she marked the pallor of his face. She would have mothered him, but never cajoled him. "He is only a boy," she thought sorrowfully, "with a boy's destructiveness. This, that he thinks is an overwhelming tragedy, will be only a mere incident in a few years' time." And she smiled at her thoughts.
Her smile awoke only the faintest echoes of dying memories within him: her smile that had once thrilled him, and sent his heart beating faster, and made his throat so curiously parched--incredible that such things had happened once!
"You are not angry," he said, timidly, with a touch of tragedy in his voice.
"Angry?" she echoed. (He feared she was going to make light of the whole affair, and trembled at the idea of her mocking him: he might have known that that also was not Lilian's way.) "Angry," she repeated. "No, Humphrey. I'm not angry."
"There's no excuse," he began, hopelessly, "I've got nothing to say for myself.... It seems to me ... it seems best that it should be ... for both of us, I mean."