True, it could make no difference to Concepcion whether
he retired to his flat for the rest of the day and saw no one, or
whether, having changed his ceremonious clothes there, he went out
again on his own affairs. True, he had promised Christine to see her
that afternoon, and a promise was a promise, and Christine was a woman
who had behaved well to him, and it would have been impossible for
him to send her an excuse, since he did not know her surname. These
apparently excellent arguments were specious and worthless. He would,
anyhow, have gone to Christine. The call was imperious within him,
and took no heed of grief, nor propriety, nor the secret decencies of
sympathy. The primitive man in him would have gone to Christine.
He sat down with a profound and exquisite relief. The entrance to the
house was nearly opposite the entrance to a prim but fashionable
and expensive hotel. To ring (and ring the right bell) and wait at
Christine's door almost under the eyes of the hotel was an ordeal....
The fat and untidy Italian had opened the door, and shut it
again--quick! He was in another world, saved, safe! On the dark
staircase the image of Concepcion with her temperament roused and
condemned to everlasting hunger, the unconquerable Concepcion blasted
in an instant of destiny--this image faded.
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