“Tears!” exclaimed Coleman in rapture, “genuine tears!” He bent eagerly forward to kiss them away, to drink them as they fell. “What an intoxication,” he said, looking up to the ceiling like a chicken that has taken a sip of water; he smacked his lips. Sobbing uncontrollably, Rosie had never in all her life felt less like a great, fastidious lady. CHAPTER XXI “Well,” said Gumbril, “here I am again.” “Already?” Mrs. Viveash had been reduced, by the violence of her headache, to coming home after her luncheon with Piers Cotton for a rest. She had fed her hungry pain on Pyramidon and now she was lying down on the Dufy-upholstered sofa at the foot of her full-length portrait by Jacques-Emile Blanche. Her head was not much better, but she was bored. When the maid had announced Gumbril, she had given word that he was to be let in. “I’m very ill,” she went on expiringly. “Look at me,” she pointed to herself, “and me again.” She waved her hand towards the sizzling brilliance of the portrait. “Before and after. Like the advertisements, you know. Every picture tells a story.” She laughed faintly, then made a little grimace and, sucking in the breath between her lips, she put her hand to her forehead. “My poor Myra.” Gumbril pulled up a chair to the sofa and sat there like a doctor at his patient’s bedside. “But before and after what?” he asked, almost professionally. Mrs. Viveash gave an all but imperceptible shrug. “I don’t know,” she said. “Not influenza, I hope?” “No, I don’t think so.” “Not love, by any chance?” Mrs. Viveash did not venture another laugh; she contented herself with smiling agonizingly. “That would have been a just retribution,” Gumbril went on, “after what you’ve done to me.” “What have I done to you?” Mrs. Viveash asked, opening wide her pale-blue eyes. “Merely wrecked my existence.” “But you’re being childish, Theodore. Say what you mean without these grand, silly phrases.” The dying voice spoke with impatience. “Well, what I mean,” said Gumbril, “is merely this. You prevented me from going to see the only person I ever really wanted to see in my life. And yesterday, when I tried to see her, she was gone. Vanished. And here am I left in the vacuum.” Mrs. Viveash shut her eyes. “We’re all in the vacuum,” she said. “You’ll still have plenty of company, you know.” She was silent for a moment. “Still, I’m sorry,” she added. “Why didn’t you tell me? And why didn’t you just pay no attention to me and go all the same?” “I didn’t tell you,” Gumbril answered, “because, then, I didn’t know. And I didn’t go because I didn’t want to quarrel with you.” “Thank you,” said Mrs. Viveash, and patted his hand, “But what are you going to do about it now? Not quarrelling with me is only a rather negative satisfaction, I’m afraid.” “I propose to leave the country to-morrow morning,” said Gumbril.