He picked up his hat and gloves and stick, and started to leave the room. As he passed the door leading to Arly’s apartments, he hesitated, and put his hand on the knob. He glanced over his shoulder, as a guilty conscience made him imagine that William was coming in, then he gently turned the knob, and entered. A tiny vestibule, and then a little French-grey salon, and then the boudoir, all in delicate blue, and sweet with a faint, delicate, evasive fragrance which was like the passing of Arly. Something made him stand, for a moment, with a trace of feeling which came to awe, and then he turned and went out of the terribly solemn place. He did not notice, until afterwards, that he had tiptoed.
Gerald Fosland had never been noted for brilliance, but he was an insufferable bore at the art tea. People asked him the usual polite questions, and he either forgot that they were talking or answered about something else, and he entirely mislaid the fragments of art conversation which he was supposed to have put on with his ascot. Nearly every one asked about Arly, and several with more than perfunctory courtesy. He had always known that Arly was very popular, but he had a new perception, now, that she was extremely well liked; and it gratified him.
Occupied with his own reflections, which were not so much thought as a dull feeling that he was about to have a thought, he nevertheless felt that this was a rather agreeable gathering, after all, until he accidentally joined a group which, with keen fervour, was discussing the accident to Prymm. He had a general aversion to gossip anyhow, and shortly after that he went home.
He wrote some letters, and, when it grew dark, he rang for William.
“I shall remain in for dinner to-night,” he observed, and mechanically took up the evening paper which the quiet William laid before him. A headline which made his hand tremble, caught his eye, and he dropped the paper. Prymm had shot himself.
No tragedy had ever shaken Gerald Fosland so much as this. Why, he had met Prymm only that noon. Prymm had said: “Good morning, beautiful weather.” For a moment Fosland almost changed his mind about remaining in for dinner, but, after all, the big panelled dining room, with its dark wainscoting and its heavily carved furniture and its super-abundant service, was less lonely than the club. The only words which broke the silence of the dim dining room during that dinner, were: “Sauce, sir?”