He came very near telling her how fond of
her he had always been; came near giving up his great trip to remain
with her always.
"Ah!" He shivered as one shivers at the thought of disaster narrowly
averted. "The fates were good that I only came near it!"
He took from his breast-pocket an engraved card, without having to
search for it, because during the few days the card had been in his
possession the action had become a habit.
"Comtesse de Vaurigard," was the name engraved, and below was written in
pencil: "To remember Monsieur Robert Russ Mellin he promise to come to
tea Hotel Magnifique, Roma, at five o'clock Thursday."
There had been disappointment in the first stages of his journey, and
that had gone hard with Mellin. Europe had been his goal so long, and
his hopes of pleasure grew so high when (after his years of saving and
putting by, bit by bit, out of his salary in a real-estate office)
he drew actually near the shining horizon. But London, his first
stopping-place, had given him some dreadful days. He knew nobody, and
had not understood how heavily sheer loneliness--which was something he
had never felt until then--would weigh upon his spirits.
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