Clavering paid his small account and they issued into the storm once more. It was impossible to talk. In the taxi she went to sleep. Thank Heaven! He had had enough of her. Odious brat. More than once he had had a sudden vision of Mary Zattiany during that astonishing conversation at the counter. The "past" she had suggested to his tormented mind was almost literary by contrast. She, herself, a queen granting favors, beside this little fashionable near-strumpet. They didn't breathe the same air, nor walk on the same plane. Who, even if this little fool were merely demi-vierge, would hesitate between them? One played the game in the grand manner, the other like a glorified gutter-snipe. But he was thankful for the diversion, and when he reached his own bed he fell asleep immediately and did not turn over for seven hours. XXI He had informed Madame Zattiany's butler over the telephone that he would call that evening at half-past nine, but he returned to his rooms after a day at the office with lagging steps. He dreaded another evening in that library by the fire. It was beyond his imagination to foresee how she would treat him, what role she would choose to play, and although he was grimly determined to play whatever role she assigned to him (for the present!), he hated the prospect. He was in no mood for a "game." This wooing was like nothing his imagination had ever prefigured. To be put on trial . . . to sit with the woman in the great solitude of the house and the very air vibrating between them . . . or frozen . . . self-conscious as a schoolboy up for inspection . . . afraid of making a false move. . . . What in God's name would they talk about? Politics? Books? Art? Banalities! . . . he'd half a mind to go to Florida after all . . . or join Jim Oglethorpe in South Carolina: he had a standing invitation . . . he'd return by the next train; he'd felt as if existing in a vacuum all day. . . . When he reached his rooms he found his problem solved for the moment--possibly. A telephone slip informed him that Madame Zattiany would be at home, and a note from Mrs. Oglethorpe enclosed tickets for her box at the opera that night. If she would only go! He called the house. The butler answered and retired to summon Madame Zattiany. Her voice came clear and cool over the telephone. He invited her to go to Sherry's for dinner and to hear Farrar in _Butterfly_ afterward. "I must tell you that we shall sit in a box," he added. "Mrs. Oglethorpe's." "Oh!" There was a pause that seemed eternal. Then she laughed suddenly, a laugh of intense amusement that ended on a note of recklessness. "Well! Why not? Yes, I will go. Very many thanks." "Good. It means an early dinner. I'll call for you at a quarter to seven." "I'm promptness itself. Au 'voir."