He is out of the room and out of the hotel before his companions can take exception to his disappearance. For some time he walks along aimlessly, his mind a jumble of misery, and dull, remorseful anxiety about Amelia; intolerable comparisons between his own lot and his friend's; sharp knives of jealousy as often as--which is almost unintermittently--his imagination wings its cruel way to the Piazza d'Azeglio--through one opulent week, _his_ Piazza. At this moment--this moment, while his own leaden feet are treading goalless the hot flags that for him lead nowhere--Byng is enthroned with _her_ in the heaven of the mean little _salon_. He unconsciously shows his teeth in a stern smile to the surprised passers-by. He had jeered Byng for his hyperboles, and now he is _out-hyperboling_ him. What a detestable verb he has invented! He laughs out loud. Are they sitting at the window, looking out at the judas tree and the Paulownia? Not they! The window is commanded to a certain extent by the roadway. The window is for acquaintances, banal acquaintances, like himself--no place for the permitted freedoms of exquisite new love. Are they then on the sofa, the vulgar walnut sofa, over which Elizabeth has thrown her blue Neapolitan tablecloth? It is a little sofa, scarcely room for two upon it, but, oh! plenty of room for them! Or are they at the piano? Is she singing him some sugared ditty "lovely well" until he breaks into her song with the storm of his kisses, and her little white hands drop from the keys, and they lie sobbing with ecstasy in each other's arms? It is quite certain that Byng will sob. He is always delighted at having an opportunity for turning on the water-works. Is there a bare possibility that Mrs. Le Marchant may carry her disapprobation to the pitch of impeding by her presence their _tête-à-tête_? The idea gives him a momentary alleviation. Why should not he go and see for himself whether it is so? It will be a method of passing the tedious interval before he can hear the doctor's verdict on Amelia. He must at some time or other comply with Byng's pressing prayer to him to offer his congratulations to Elizabeth, and he may as well have a day of complete and perfect pain--pain of various flavours and essences mixed into one consummate draught--a day of which not one hour shall be without its ache.