Passing the corner of the house he bent forward unconsciously to look at the windows of the room where she was, but the blinds were drawn; in fact, as he took out the little note and read it again, he saw that it was dated at three o'clock that morning. She must have scribbled it before going to bed. He knew she had gone to her room very late, for he had sat waiting for the sound of her voice and the swish of her gown. Their rooms had been on the same landing. He slipped his pocket-book back with a sigh, and as he drove rapidly away he found himself wishing with every turn of the wheels that he was going back again; that was the curious part of this charm which Camilla exercised over him. When he was near to her she vexed him, she troubled him; when he was away he only felt the appealing claim of her beauty, of that simplicity, that "insouciance" that was so apart from and yet, with her, so much a part of her womanliness. She was such a curious mixture, pre-eminently womanly, tender, sympathetic, and, at the same time, tainted unmistakably with pronounced worldliness. Much as he had studied her, he felt quite unequal to gauging her character. Once he had heard some woman declare that Camilla was "insincere." He had felt a wholly unreasonable amount of anger against that woman. And yet he was quite unprepared to defend her this morning against such an accusation. He had suffered, really suffered, when he had seen her with Broxbourne. It was inconceivable to him that a woman so delicately fashioned as she mentally (though not supremely intelligent, her mind had a tendency to poetry and charm evinced unconsciously a score of times) could find pleasure in the society of this young man with his rough voice, his sporting look, his peculiar manners. Nevertheless, she had laughed and sparkled and met Sir Samuel with all the ease and intimacy of a comrade. "It is because she is alone, because she has no one to lead her," he said to himself as he sat in the train whirling to town. But ponder as he might, he could offer to himself nothing convincing or satisfying where Camilla Lancing was concerned. All he knew was that no matter how his mind might busy itself with other thoughts, it always circled back to Camilla in some fashion or other. As he drew nearer to the smoke and the fog of the great city he closed his eyes and dreamed of the day before--of that wide expanse of restless, sun-kissed sea, with the sky fading in the distance into a glorious sweep of gold and purple and grey. In his imagination he could hear again the break of the waves on the wet beach mingling with the musical hum of the car, and he could feel once again that sense of delight, almost of possessive delight, as he had looked back ever and anon and had met the smile of Camilla's sweet eyes and pensive lips. She seemed to be cut away from him altogether by this darkness and heavy atmosphere.