"Can't I see you somewhere for a few minutes this evening ?" "I am afraid not," Elizabeth replied coolly.
"Are you going out ?" he persisted.
"I am going to the Duke of York's Theatre with some friends," she answered.

"I am sorry.

You have disappointed me." She rang off and he turned away from the telephone booth into the street.

It seemed to him, as he walked down the crowded thoroughfare, that some reflection of his own self-contempt was visible in the countenances of the men and women who were hurrying past him.

Wherever he looked, he was acutely conscious of it.