Doreen's mother was all smiles. She had other daughters coming
on.
That Tony and Doreen Neville were rapidly drifting towards the condition
known as being in love was unmistakable, and Eliot envied the pliant
facility of youth which can put the past behind and embark so soon upon
a new adventure. Surely a man who had once believed himself in love with
Ann--Ann, with her warm vitality and pluck and humour--could never be
satisfied with the frail beauty and helpless, clinging sweetness which was
all that Lady Doreen had to offer! Ann was not an easy person to forget, as
Eliot knew to his own most bitter cost. Yet Brabazon seemed able to forget.
God! If only the faculty of forgetting were purchasable!...
* * * * *
The waiter sped swiftly forward and deposited Eliot's coffee on the table
by his side, rousing him out of his bitter reflections with a jolt.
"You've been an unconscionable time!" he flung at the man irritably, and
then smiled wryly at his own irritability. His nerve must be going! A
French newspaper lay on the table at his elbow. Drawing it towards him he
deliberately immersed himself in its pages to the exclusion of the thoughts
which were torturing him.
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