It
was a pleasant kind of loneliness. To a man who was so little given
to reflection, whose dreams always took the form of definite ideas,
reaching into the future, there was a seductive excitement in renewing
old experiences in imagination. He started out upon these walks half
guiltily, with a curious longing and expectancy which were wholly
gratified by solitude. Solitude, but not solitariness; for he walked
shoulder to shoulder with a shadowy companion--not little Hilda
Burgoyne, by any means, but some one vastly dearer to him than she had
ever been--his own young self, the youth who had waited for him upon the
steps of the British Museum that night, and who, though he had tried to
pass so quietly, had known him and come down and linked an arm in his.
It was not until long afterward that Alexander learned that for him this
youth was the most dangerous of companions.
One Sunday evening, at Lady Walford's, Alexander did at last meet Hilda
Burgoyne. Mainhall had told him that she would probably be there. He
looked about for her rather nervously, and finally found her at the
farther end of the large drawing-room, the centre of a circle of men,
young and old. She was apparently telling them a story. They were
all laughing and bending toward her. When she saw Alexander, she rose
quickly and put out her hand. The other men drew back a little to let
him approach.
"Mr. Alexander! I am delighted. Have you been in London long?"
Bartley bowed, somewhat laboriously, over her hand.
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