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Updated: June 16, 2025
Seeing Miss Van Tuyn standing still with a certain obstinacy he came up and took her hand. "Nice to meet you again," he said. Braybrooke thought of Miss Van Tuyn's remark about the Foreign Office manner, and hoped Craven was going to be at his best that evening. It seemed to him that there was a certain dryness in the young people's greeting.
The article which he felt sure had gripped Miss Van Tuyn's attention described a new play which had just made a sensation in Paris.
Indeed, in his preoccupation with Craven's affairs and Adela Sellingworth's possible indiscretions really he knew of no gentler word to apply to what he had in mind he had entirely forgotten that Fanny Cronin's charming profession of sitting in deep arm-chairs, reposing on luxurious sofas, and lying in perfect French beds, might, indeed would, be drastically interfered with by Miss Van Tuyn's marriage.
Long ago at a first glance Sir Seymour had seen that this man was a wrong 'un, and now, as he looked at Arabian, he found himself wondering how anyone could fail to see that. "Now I will tell you exactly," Arabian said. And he explained carefully and lucidly enough though through occasional yawns what had happened between Garstin and himself. He did not mention Miss Van Tuyn's name.
He should have been like other young men, obedient to the call of beauty and youth; he should have been wax in Beryl Van Tuyn's pretty hands. Then this would never have happened, this crumbling of will. He had done a cruel thing without being aware of his cruelty. He had been carried away by something that was not primarily physical.
As he slowly approached Miss Cronin he endeavoured resolutely to bear himself like a man who had not proposed that day for Miss Van Tuyn's hand. But preposterously, Miss Cronin's absurd misconception seemed to have power over his conscience, and that again over his appearance and gait. He was fully aware, as he went forward to convey Miss Van Tuyn's message, that he made a very poor show of it.
"Yes." He heard her sigh. But she said nothing more. He told what had happened in the flat, but not fully. He said nothing of Arabian's mention of her name, but he did tell her that he himself had spoken of her, had said that he was a friend of hers. And finally he told her how, carried away by indignation, he had spoken of his and Miss Van Tuyn's knowledge that Arabian had stolen her jewels.
But the truth was and perhaps she suspected it that he was trying to escape from depression, caused by a sense of injury, through an adventure. He felt Miss Van Tuyn's great physical attraction, and just then he wished that it would overwhelm him. If it did he would soon cease from minding what Lady Sellingworth had done. A certain recklessness possessed him.
"That's how it ends!" And he went over to what had been Arabian's portrait, and gazed at the hole which surmounted the magnificent torso. He had no doubt that Arabian had gone out of Miss Van Tuyn's life for ever.
She had even asked him, a young fellow, certainly younger than Beryl Van Tuyn's escort, to play the part of chaperon to the girl! Did she could she know something about Arabian? Certainly she did not know him. In the restaurant she had inquired who he was. But, later, she had said that his profile seemed familiar to her, that perhaps she had seen him about London.
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