And Merle, likewise clutching at her rags of self-respect, responded with a forced laugh: "You don't make the diamonds, then?"
"No," Stuart's tones were somewhat grim. "We don't make the diamonds." He paused. Then, with a quick "Good-bye," went to answer the telephone summons. "I'll see you directly, Digby," thrown out on his way to the door. Baldwin Carr appeared at another entrance: "Has Macpherson gone, Stuart? Derwent wanted to speak to you----" "Right! when I've polished off Grey." What _was_ the matter with all these men, that the wrinkle lay so deep between their eyebrows?
Baldwin glanced in some surprise at the figures of Peter and Merle, standing irresolutely by the window. Then returned to his private office.
The confidential clerk showed them out. A swinging door presented them with a snatch of telephonic conversation: "Yes, it's Mr. Stuart Heron--Yes--No, not till to-night, nothing definite--we think----" The door swung to, cutting off the rest.
On the stone steps, they came face to face with a little shrivelled man, head cocked to one side; Arthur Heron, had they known it; rat about to rejoin the sinking ship.
Out in the push and clamour of Holborn, Merle drew a long breath, put both hands up to her hot face: "I wonder if I shall ever grow cool again," she said, rather tremulously. And: "I suppose we've made rather fools of ourselves."
"Don't!" gasped Peter. Every time she recalled the blank look which had received her first eager speeches it was as if someone had dealt her a blow in the face. Oh, the stinging ignominy which lay in the remembrance of Merle and herself, two blushing incoherent little--idiots, intruding with froth and futility into the world of real things, solid things, things that matter, world of men. And Stuart could so easily have averted humiliation from their heads: one look, one word, to prove his recollection of the thousand intimacies that had lain between them.--"A day in the country ... I'm sorry--_Sorry!_" She ejaculated the word aloud in accents of such furious scorn, that Merle looked round startled. He should be sorrier still, soon! His fault, every bit; not for ejecting them, but for ever having dared invite them--to meet with that.