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Ned was so astounded that for a minute he could only stare blankly at Fred Manson.
" What on earth d'you mean?"
" Exactly what I say."
" You can't let her down now. Her people have thrown her out. She's been working all this time to get a home ready for you. She's got the licence and everything."
" I don't care. I'm not going to marry her."
" But why, why, why?"
Ned was flabbergasted. Fred Manson was silent for a bit. His face was dark and sullen.
" I'll tell you. I've thought about her night and day for eighteen months and now I'm sick to death of her."
When Ned Preston reached this point of his story our hostess and our fellow guests broke into loud laughter. He was plainly taken aback. There was some little talk after that and the party broke up. Ned and I, having to go in the same direction, walked along Piccadilly together. For a time we walked in silence.
" I noticed you didn't laugh with the others," he said abruptly. "I didn't think it funny."
" What d'you make of it?"
" Well, I can see his point, you know. Imagination's an odd thing, it dries up; I suppose, thinking of her incessantly all that time he'd exhausted every emotion she could give him, and I think it was quite literally true, he'd just got sick to death of her. He'd squeezed the lemon dry and there was nothing to do but throw away the rind." ,,
" I didn't think it funny either. That's why I didn't tell them the rest of the story. I wouldn't accept it at first. I thought it was just hysteria or something. I went to see him two or three days running. I argued with him. I really did my damnedest. I thought if he'd only see her it would be all right, but he wouldn't even do that. He said he hated the sight of her. I couldn't move him. At last I had to go and tell her."
We walked on a little longer in silence.

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"I saw her in that beastly, stinking corridor. She saw at once there was something the matter and she went awfully white. She wasn't a girl to show much emotion. There was something gracious and rather noble about her face. Tranquil. Her lips quivered a bit when I told her and she didn't say anything for a minute. When she spoke it was quite calmly, as thoughwell, as though she'd just missed a bus and would have to wait for another. As though it was a nuisance, you know, but nothing to make a song and dance about. `There's nothing for me to do now but put my head in the gas-oven,' she said.
" And she did."