Later in the day M. de Mauves came into his wife's drawing-room, where
she sat waiting to be summoned to dinner. He had dressed as he usually
didn't dress for dining at home. He walked up and down for some moments
in silence, then rang the bell for a servant and went out into the hall
to meet him. He ordered the carriage to take him to the station, paused
a moment with his hand on the knob of the door, dismissed the servant
angrily as the latter lingered observing him, re-entered the drawing-
room, resumed his restless walk and at last stopped abruptly before his
wife, who had taken up a book. "May I ask the favour," he said with
evident effort, in spite of a forced smile as of allusion to a large
past exercise of the very best taste, "of having a question answered?"

"It's a favour I never refused," she replied.

"Very true. Do you expect this evening a visit from Mr. Longmore?"

"Mr. Longmore," said his wife, "has left Saint-Germain." M. de Mauves
waited, but his smile expired. "Mr. Longmore," his wife continued, "has
gone to America."

M. de Mauves took it--a rare thing for him--with confessed, if
momentary, intellectual indigence. But he raised, as it were, the wind.
"Has anything happened?" he asked, "Had he a sudden call?" But his
question received no answer. At the same moment the servant threw open
the door and announced dinner; Madame Clairin rustled in, rubbing her
white hands, Madame de Mauves passed silently into the dining-room, but
he remained outside--outside of more things, clearly, than his mere
salle-a-manger. Before long he went forth to the terrace and continued
his uneasy walk. At the end of a quarter of an hour the servant came to
let him know that his carriage was at the door. "Send it away," he said