"I don't like that blouse," he said slowly, "it's a soft, shapeless
thing!"
He lifted his finger towards her breast, but she dashed his hand aside.
"Don't touch me!" she cried.
He caught her wrist; she wrenched it away.
"And where may you have been?" he asked.
"In heaven--out of this house!" With those words she fled upstairs.
Outside--in thanksgiving--at the very door, the organ-grinder was
playing the waltz.
And Soames stood motionless. What prevented him from following her?
Was it that, with the eyes of faith, he saw Bosinney looking down from
that high window in Sloane Street, straining his eyes for yet another
glimpse of Irene's vanished figure, cooling his flushed face, dreaming
of the moment when she flung herself on his breast--the scent of her
still in the air around, and the sound of her laugh that was like a sob?