He stopped suddenly, with a perception that Anthony was sitting and looking grimly at him. He had a soft heart, and the idea of going away from Ada was solidifying his feelings, which had hitherto scarcely taken shape beyond the amusement of the moment, so that for the first time it gave him an actual pang to remember that the real separation lay in this engagement of Ada's. One or two discoveries were made in that moment. Anthony awakened to the perception that another mistake must be added to the list, and it was a mistake which, whatever may be a man's feelings, is sure to gall him. An apparently transparent affection, such as Ada's, had been grateful to him at a time when he was very sore with all the world, and the fact of this soreness and of his own changed position gave it an air of reality which he had never thought of questioning. Even if he had discovered that her heart held no great depths, what was there he believed to be all his own; and Mr Warren would have been the last person presented to his thoughts as a possible rival until now, when Ada's manner and sudden change from gloom to gaiety made him very wroth, with the anger not of jealousy, but of wounded pride. Nor did his own failure towards her soften him, for he satisfied himself by thinking that he had at least told her the truth, and put the matter into her own choice, while she had deliberately deceived him by liking this young idiot, and showing her preference unblushingly the instant the fellow's position was changed. Anthony's face grew blacker and blacker, and Ada, perhaps desirous of driving him to desperation, put out all her charms for Mr Warren. There was a certain comfortable prettiness about the room, about the cheerful colouring, and the big fire which looked brighter and brighter as the afternoon shortened, and in the midst of it all one of those half-absurd, half-tragic complications, which sometimes seem to get inextricably knotted round a life. Anthony jumped up at last. "I am glad your headache is better," he said shortly. "Are you going? Good bye, then," said Ada, in an indifferent voice. He stood still, and looked at her for a moment, so that her eyes fell under his. But she recovered herself immediately, and glanced up as if she were waiting for him to speak. He said no more, however, but went out of the room, Sniff barking with delight the instant he found himself safely in the hall.