A Comedy of Masks by Ernest Dowson — Read

If Philip Rainham's name, during that long, hard winter and ungracious spring -- near the close of which he turned his face, with the least little sigh of regret, to the wall -- was not often mentioned in the house in Parton Street, at whose door he had formerly knocked so often, it must not be supposed that by its occupants it had been in any way forgotten. He had not committed the discourtesy of leaving Lady Garnett's note unanswered; on the contrary, he had answered it both promptly and -- as it seemed to him -- well, in a letter which was certainly diplomatic, suggesting as it did -- at least, to Mary Masters, to whom it had been shown -- that he was on the point of an immediate flight South.

Whether the elder lady was equally deceived by his ambiguous phrases, it was not so easy to declare. She had, at this time less than ever, the mode of persons who wear their hearts upon their sleeves; her mask of half-cynical good-humour was constantly up; and she met the girl's hinted interrogations -- for directly the nature of their uneasiness, by a sort of tacit agreement, was not alluded to -- with the same smiling indifference, the same air of bland reassurance which she brought to the discussion of a sauce or an _entremet_ at one of those select little dinner-parties on which she piqued herself, and which latterly had been more incessant and more select than ever.