Jane walked with him towards the door.
"I am horribly disappointed," he confessed, under his breath.
She smiled a little deprecatingly.
"I couldn't help having people here, could I ?" "I suppose not," he answered, with masculine unreasonableness.

"I only know that I wanted to see you alone." "Men are such schoolboys," she murmured tolerantly.

"Even you! I must see my friends, mustn't I, when they know that I am here and call ?" "About that friend on Thursday night ?" he went on.
"I am waiting to hear from him," she answered, "whether he prefers to dine here or to take me out." His ill-humour vanished, and with it some of his stiffness of bearing.
His farewell bow from the door to Lady Somerham was distinguished with a new affability.
"If we may be alone," he said softly, "I should like to come here." Nevertheless, his visit left him a little disturbed, perhaps a little irritable.

With all the dominant selfishness which is part of a man's love, he had spent every waking leisure moment since their last meeting in a world peopled by Jane and himself alone, a world in which any other would have been an intruder.

His eagerly anticipated visit to her had brought him sharply up against the commonplace facts of their day-by-day existence.