The man's face was dark with passion. It was as though he were
personally aggrieved. His tone was rough, almost threatening. The girl
only smiled at him serenely, but she laid her hand for a moment
quietly upon his.
"Dear friend," she said, "this is a matter which you must leave to me
to do as I think best. Annabel is my only sister, you know, almost my
only relative. If I do not look after her, she has no one. And she is
very young, younger than her years."
It was significant of her influence over him that he answered her
calmly, although a storm of angry thoughts were struggling for
expression within him.
"Look after her! Why not? But you have done it all your life. You have
been her guardian angel. But even you cannot alter her character.
Annabel was born soulless, a human butterfly, if ever there was one.
The pursuit of pleasure, self-gratification, is an original instinct
with her. Blood and bone, body and spirit, she is selfish through and
through. Even you have not been able to hold her back. I speak no harm
of her. She is your sister, and God knows I wish her none. But----"
A look checked him.
"I know," she said quietly, "that Paris, where she has been so much
admired, is not a good place for her. That is why I am glad that she
has gone to London."
He rose from his chair, and walked restlessly up and down the room.
The passion of pent-up speech compelled action of some sort. There was
a black fear in his heart. He stopped before her suddenly.
"You, too," he said abruptly. "You mean to follow her. You will go to
London?"
"It is necessary," she answered. "You yourself have decided
that--apart from the question of Annabel."
He was suddenly calm.
"It is part of the irony of life," he said. "One is always playing the
surgeon, one kills always the thing one loves best. I meant to lie to
you. Would to God I had."
She shook her head.
"The surgeon's knife is surely a kindly weapon," she declared. "It was
best for me to know. Later on I could scarcely have forgiven you."
"And now--I am to lose you."
"For a little time," she answered. "I meant to say good-bye to you
to-night. Or, after all, is it worth while? The Channel is a little
broader than the Boulevards--but one crosses it sometimes."
He looked at her with white, set face.
"Yes," he said, "I shall come. That is very certain. But, after all,
it will be different. I think that I have become a drug drinker. I
need you every day. In the mornings I find labour easy because I am
going to see you. In the afternoon my brain and fingers leap to their
work because you have been with me. Anna, you shall not go. I cannot
let you go."