At a few minutes after ten Loder left Chilcote's room, resolutely descended the stairs, and took up his position in the hall. Resolution is a strong word to apply to such a proceeding, but something in his bearing, in the attitude of his shoulders and head, instinctively suggested it.

Five or six minutes passed, but he waited without impatience; then at last the sound of a carriage stopping before the house caused him to lift his head, and at the same instant Eve appeared at the head of the staircase.

She stood there for a second, looking down on him, her maid a pace or two behind, holding her cloak. The picture she made struck upon his mind with something of a revelation.

On his first sight of her she had appealed to him as a strange blending of youth and self-possession—a girl with a woman's clearer perception of life; later he had been drawn to study her in other aspects—as a possible comrade and friend; now for the first time he saw her as a power in her own world, a woman to whom no man could deny consideration. She looked taller for the distance between them, and the distinction of her carriage added to the effect. Her black gown was exquisitely soft—as soft as her black hair; above her forehead was a cluster of splendid diamonds shaped like a coronet, and a band of the same stones encircled her neck. Loder realized in a glance that only the most distinguished of women could wear such ornaments and not have her beauty eclipsed. With a touch of the old awkwardness that had before assailed him in her presence, he came slowly forward as she descended the stairs.

"Can I help you with your cloak?" he asked. And as he asked it, something like surprise at his own timidity crossed his mind.

For a second Eve's glance rested on his face. Her expression was quite impassive, but as she lowered her lashes a faint gleam flickered across her eyes; nevertheless, her answer, when it came, was studiously courteous.

"Thank you," she said, "but Marie will do all I want."

Loder looked at her for a moment, then turned aside. He was not hurt by his rebuff; rather, by an interesting sequence of impressions, he was stirred by it. The pride that had refused Chilcote's help, and the self-control that had refused it graciously, moved him to admiration. He understood and appreciated both by the light of person experience.

"The carriage is waiting, sir," Crapham's voice broke in.

Loder nodded, and Eve turned to her maid. "That will do, Marie," she said. "I shall want a cup of chocolate when I get back—probably at one o clock." She drew her cloak about her shoulders and moved towards the door. Then she paused and looked back. "Shall we start?" she asked, quietly.

Loder, still watching her, came forward at once. "Certainly," he said, with unusual gentleness.

He followed her as she crossed the footpath, but made no further offer of help; and when the moment came he quietly took his place beside her in the carriage. His last impression, as the horses wheeled round, was of the open hall door—Crapham in his sombre livery and the maid in her black dress, both silhouetted against the dark background of the hall; then, as the carriage moved forward smoothly and rapidly, he leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes.

During the first few moments of the drive there was silence. To Loder there was a strange, new sensation in this companionship, so close and yet so distant. He was so near to Eve that the slight fragrant scent from her clothes might almost have belonged to his own. The impression was confusing yet vaguely delightful. It was years since he had been so close to a woman of his own class—his own caste. He acknowledged the thought with a curious sense of pleasure. Involuntarily he turned and looked at her.

She was sitting very straight, her fine profile cut clear against the carriage window, her diamonds quivering in the light that flashed by them from the street. For a space the sense of unreality that had pervaded his first entrance into Chilcote's life touched him again, then another and more potent feeling rose to quell it. Almost involuntarily as he looked at her his lips parted.

"May I say something?" he asked.

Eve remained motionless. She did not turn her head, as most women would have done. "Say anything you like," she said, gravely.

"Anything?" He bent a little nearer, filled again by the inordinate wish to dominate.

"Of course."

It seemed to him that her voice sounded forced and a little tired. For a moment he looked through the window at the passing lights; then slowly his gaze returned to her face.

"You look very beautiful to-night," he said. His voice was low and his manner unemotional, but his words had the effect he desired.

She turned her head, and her eyes met his in a glance of curiosity and surprise.

Slight as the triumph was, it thrilled him. The small scene with Chilcote's valet came back to him; his own personality moved him again to a reckless determination to make his own voice heard. Leaning forward, he laid his hand lightly on her arm.

"Eve," he said, quickly—"Eve, do you remember?" Then he paused and withdrew his hand. The horses had slackened speed, then stopped altogether as the carriage fell into line outside Bramfell House.



XIV

Loder entered Lady Bramfell's feeling far more like an actor in a drama than an ordinary man in a peculiar situation. It was the first time he had played Chilcote to a purely social audience, and the first time for many years that he had rubbed shoulders with a well-dressed crowd ostensibly brought together for amusement. As he followed Eve along the corridor that led to the reception-rooms he questioned the reality of the position again and again; then abruptly, at the moment when the sensation of unfamiliarity was strongest, a cheery voice hailed him, and, turning, he saw the square shoulders, light eyes, and pointed mustache of Lakeley, the owner of the 'St. George's Gazette'.

At the sight of the man and the sound of his greeting his doubts and speculations vanished. The essentials of life rose again to the position they had occupied three weeks ago, in the short but strenuous period when his dormant activities had been stirred and he had recognized his true self. He lifted his head unconsciously, the shade of misgiving that had crossed his confidence passing from him as he smiled at Lakeley with a keen, alert pleasure that altered his whole face.

Eve, looking back, saw the expression. It attracted and held her, like a sudden glimpse into a secret room. In all the years of her marriage, in the months of her courtship even, she had never surprised the look on Chilcote's face. The impression came quickly. and with it a strange, warm rush of interest that receded slowly, leaving an odd sense of loneliness. But, at the moment that the feeling came and passed, her attention was claimed in another direction. A slight, fair-haired boy forced his way towards her through the press of people that filled the corridor.

"Mrs. Chilcote!" he exclaimed. "Can I believe my luck in finding you alone?"

Eve laughed. It seemed that there was relief in her laugh. "How absurd you are, Bobby!" she said, kindly. "But you are wrong. My husband is here—I am waiting for him."

Blessington looked round. "Oh!" he said. "Indeed!" Then he relapsed into silence. He was the soul of good-nature, but those who knew him best knew that Chilcote's summary change of secretaries had rankled. Eve, conscious of the little jar, made haste to smooth it away.

"Tell me about yourself," she said. "What have you been doing?"

Blessington looked at her, then smiled again, his buoyancy restored. "Doing?" he said. "Oh, calling every other afternoon at Grosvenor Square—only to find that a certain lady is never at home."

At his tone Eve laughed again. The boy, with his frank and ingenuous nature, had beguiled many a dull hour for her in past days, and she had missed him not a little when his place had been filled by Greening.

"But I mean seriously, Bobby. Has something good turned up?"

Blessington made a wry face "Something is on its way—that's why I am on duty to-right. Old Bramfell and the pater are working it between them. So if Lady Bramfell or Lady Astrupp happen to drop a fan or a handkerchief this evening, I've got to be here to pick it up. See?"

"As you picked up my fans and handkerchiefs last year—and the year before?" Eve smiled.

Blessington's face suddenly looked grave. "I wish you hadn't said that," he said. Then he paused abruptly. Out of the hum of talk behind them a man's laugh sounded. It was not loud, but it was a laugh that one seldom hears in a London drawing-room —it expressed interest, amusement, and in an inexplicable may it seemed also to express strength.

Eve and Blessington both turned involuntarily.

"By Jove!" said Blessington

Eve said nothing.

Loder was parting with Lakely, and his was the laugh that had attracted them both. The interest excited by his talk was still reflected in his face and bearing as he made his way towards them.

"By Jove!" said Blessington again. "I never realized that Chilcote was so tall."

Again Eve said nothing. But silently and with a more subtle meaning she found herself echoing the words.

Until he was quite close to her, Loder did not seem to see her. Then he stopped quietly.

"I was speaking to Lakely," he said. "He wants me to dine with him one night at Cadogan Gardens."

But Eve was silent, waiting for him to address Blessington. She glanced at him quickly, but though their eyes met he did not catch the meaning that lay in hers. It was a difficult moment. She had known him incredibly, almost unpardonably, absent-minded, but it had invariably been when he was suffering from nerves," as she phrased it to herself. But to-night he was obviously in the possession of unclouded faculties. She colored slightly and glanced under her lashes at Blessington. Had the same idea struck him, she wondered? But he was studiously studying a suit of Chinese armor that stood close by in a niche of the wall.

"Bobby has been keeping me amused while you talked to Mr. Lakely," she said, pointedly.

Directly addressed, Loder turned and looked at Blessington. "How d'you do?" he said, with doubtful cordiality. The name of Bobby conveyed nothing to him.

To his surprise, Eve looked annoyed, and Blessington's fresh-colored face deepened in tone. With a slow, uncomfortable sensation he was aware of having struck a wrong note.

There was a short, unpleasant pause. Then, more by intuition than actual sight, Blessington saw Eve's eyes turn from him to Loder, and with quick tact he saved the situation.

"How d'you do, sir?" he responded, with a smile. "I congratulate you on looking so—so uncommon well. I was just telling Mrs. Chilcote that I hold a commission for Lady Astrupp to-night. I'm a sort of scout at present—reporting on the outposts." He spoke fast and without much meaning, but his boyish voice eased the strain.

Eve thanked him with a smile. "Then we mustn't interfere with a person on active service," she said. "Besides, we have our own duties to get through."

She smiled again, and, touching Loder's arm, indicated the reception-rooms.

When they entered the larger of the two rooms Lady Bramfell was still receiving her guests. She was a tall and angular woman, who, except for a certain beauty of hands and feet and a certain similarity of voice, possessed nothing in common with her sister Lillian. She was speaking to a group of people as they approached, and the first sound of her sweet and rather drawling tones touched Loder with a curious momentary feeling—a vague suggestion of awakened memories. Then the suggestion vanished as she turned and greeted Eve.

"How sweet of you to come!" she murmured. And it seemed to Loder that a more spontaneous smile lighted up her face. Then she extended her hand to him. "And you, too!" she added. "Though I fear we shall bore you dreadfully."

Watching her with interest, he saw the change of expression as her eyes turned from Eve to him, and noticed a colder tone in her voice as she addressed him directly. The observation moved him to self-assertion.

"That's a poor compliment to me," he said "To be bored is surely only a polite way of being inane."

Lady Bramfell smiled. "What!" she exclaimed. "You defending your social reputation?"

Loder laughed a little. "The smaller it is, the more defending it needs," he replied.

Another stream of arrivals swept by them as he spoke; Eve smiled at their hostess and moved across the room, and he perforce followed. As he gained her side, the little court about Lady Bramfell was left well in the rear, the great throng at the farther end of the room was not yet reached, and for the moment they were practically alone.

There was a certain uneasiness in that moment of companionship. It seemed to him that Eve wished to speak, but hesitated. Once or twice she opened and closed the fan that she was carrying, then at last, as if by an effort, she turned and looked at him.

"Why were you so cold to Bobby Blessington?" she asked. "Doesn't it seem discourteous to ignore him as you did?"

Her manner was subdued. It was not the annoyed manner that one uses to a man when he has behaved ill; it was the explanatory tone one might adopt towards an incorrigible child. Loder felt this; but the gist of a remark always came to him first, its mode of expression later. The fact that it was Blessington whom he had encountered—Blessington to whom he had spoken with vague politeness—came to him with a sense of unpleasantness. He was not to blame in the matter, nevertheless he blamed himself. He was annoyed that, he should have made the slip in Eve's presence.

They were moving forward, nearing the press of people in the second room, when Eve spoke, and the fact filled him with an added sense of annoyance. People smiled and bowed to her from every side; one woman leaned forward as they passed and whispered something in her ear. Again the sensation of futility and vexation filled him; again he realized how palpable was the place she held in the world. Then, as his feelings reached their height and speech seemed forced upon him, a small man with a round face, catching a glimpse of Eve, darted from a circle of people gathered in one of the windows and came quickly towards them.

With an unjust touch of irritation he recognized Lord Bramfell.

Again the sense of Eve's aloofness stung him as their host approached. In another moment she would be lost to him among this throng of strangers—claimed by them as by right.

"Eve—" he said, involuntarily and under his breath.

She half paused and turned towards him. "Yes?" she said; and he wondered if it was his imagination that made the word sound slightly eager.

"About that matter of Blessington—" he began. Then he stopped, Bramfell had reached them.

The little man came up smiling and with an outstretched hand. "There's no penalty for separating husband and wife, is there, Mrs. Chilcote? How are you, Chilcote?" He turned from one to the other with the quick, noiseless manner that always characterized him.

Loder turned aside to hide his vexation, but Eve greeted their host with her usual self-possessed smile.

"You are exempt from all penalties to-night," she said. Then she turned to greet the members of his party who had strolled across from the window in his wake.

As she moved aside Bramfell looked at Loder. "Well, Chilcote, have you dipped into the future yet?" he asked, with a laugh.

Loder echoed the laugh but said nothing. In his uncertainty at the question he reverted to his old resource of silence.

Bramfell raised his eyebrows. "What!" he said. "Don't tell me that my sister-in-law hasn't engaged you as a victim." Then he turned in Eve's direction. "You've heard of our new departure, Mrs. Chilcote?"

Eve looked round from the lively group by which she was surrounded. "Lillian's crystal-gazing? Why, of course!" she said. "She should make a very beautiful seer. We are all quite curious."

Bramfell pursed up his lips. "She has a very beautiful tent at the end of the conservatory. It took five men as many days to rig it up. We couldn't hear ourselves talk, for hammering. My wife said it made her feel quite philanthropic, it reminded her so much of a charity bazaar."

Everybody laughed; and at the same moment Blessington came quickly across the room and joined the group.

"Hallo!" he said. "Anybody seen Witcheston? He's next on my list for the crystal business."

Again the whole party laughed, and Bramfell, stepping forward, touched Blessington's arm in mock seriousness.

"Witcheston is playing bridge, like a sensible man," he said. "Leave him in peace, Bobby."

Blessington made a comical grimace. "But I'm working this on commercial principles," he said. "I keep the list, names and hours complete, and Lady Astrupp gazes, in blissful ignorance as to who her victims are. The whole thing is great—simple and statistical."

"For goodness' sake, Bobby, shut up!" Bramfell's round eyes were twinkling with amusement.

"But my system—"

"Systems! Ah, we all had them when we were as young as you are!"

"And they all had flaws, Bobby," Eve broke in. "We were always finding gaps that had to be filled up. Never mind about Lord Witcheston. Get a substitute; it won't count—if Lillian doesn't know."

Blessington wavered as she spoke. His eyes wandered round the party and again rested on Bramfell.

"Not me, Bobby! Remember, I've breathed crystals—practically lived on them—for the last week. Now, there's Chilcote—" Again his eyes twinkled.

All eyes were turned on Loder, though one or two strayed surreptitiously to Eve. She, seeming sensitive to the position, laughed quickly.

"A very good idea!" she said. "Who wants to see the future, if not a politician?"

Loder glanced from her to Blessington. Then, with a very feminine impulse, she settled the matter beyond dispute.

"Please use your authority, Bobby," she said. "And when you've got him safely under canvas, come back to me. It's years since we've had a talk." She nodded and smiled, then instantly turned to Bramfell with some trivial remark.

For a second Loder waited, then with a movement of resignation he laid his hand on Blessington's arm. "Very well!" he said. "But if my fate is black, witness it was my wife who sent me to it." His faint pause on the word wife, the mention of the word itself in the presence of these people, had a savor of recklessness. The small discomfiture of his earlier slip vanished before it; he experienced a strong reaction of confidence in his luck. With a cool head, a steady step, and a friendly pressure of the fingers on Blessington's arm, he allowed himself to be drawn across the reception-rooms, through the long corridors, and down the broad flight of steps that led to the conservatory.

The conservatory was a feature of the Bramfell townhouse, and to Loder it came as something wonderful and unlooked-for—with its clustering green branches, its slight, unoppressive scents, its temperately pleasant atmosphere. He felt no wish to speak as, still guided by Blessington, he passed down the shadowy paths that in the half-light had the warmth and mystery of a Southern garden. Here and there from the darkness came the whispering of a voice or the sound of a laugh, bringing with them the necessary touch of life. Otherwise the place was still.

Absorbed by the air of solitude, contrasting so remarkably with the noise and crowded glitter left behind in the reception-rooms, he had moved half-way down the long, green aisle before the business in hand came back to him with a sudden sense of annoyance. It seemed so paltry to mar the quiet of the place with the absurdity of a side-show. He turned to Blessington with a touch of abruptness.

"What am I expected to do?" he asked.

Blessington looked up, surprised. "Why, I thought, sir—" he began. Then he instantly altered his tone: "Oh, just enter into the spirit of the thing. Lady Astrupp won't put much strain on your credulity, but she'll make a big call on your solemnity." He laughed.

He had an infectious laugh, and Loder responded to it.

"But what am I to do?" he persisted.

"Oh, nothing. Being the priestess, she, naturally demands acolytes; but she'll let you know that she holds the prior place. The tent is so fixed that she sees nothing beyond your hands; so there's absolutely no delusion." He laughed once more. Then suddenly he lowered his voice and slackened his steps. "Here we are!" he whispered, in pretended awe.

At the end of the path the space widened to the full breadth of the conservatory. The light was dimmer, giving an added impression of distance; away to the left, Loder heard the sound of splashing water, and on his right hand he caught his first glimpse of the tent that was his goal.

It was an artistic little structure—a pavilion formed of silky fabric that showed bronze in the light of an Oriental lamp that hung above its entrance. As they drew closer, a man emerged from it. He stood for a moment in uncertainty, looking about him; then, catching sight of them, he came forward laughing.

"By George!" he exclaimed, "it's as dark as limbo in there! I didn't see you at first. But I say, Blessirigton, it's a beastly shame to have that thunder-cloud barrier shutting off the sorceress. If she gazes at the crystal, mayn't we have something to gaze at, too?"

Blessington laughed. "You want too much, Galltry," he said. "Lady Astrupp understands the value of the unattainable. Come along, sir!" he added to Loder, drawing him forward with an energetic pressure of the arm.

Loder responded, and as he did so a flicker of curiosity touched his mind for the first time. He wondered for an instant who this woman was who aroused so much comment. And with the speculation came the remembrance of how she had assured Chilcote that on one point. at least he was invulnerable. He had spoken then from the height of a past experience—an experience so fully passed that he wondered now if it had been as staple a guarantee as he had then believed. Man's capacity for outliving is astonishingly complete. The long-ago incident in the Italian mountains had faded, like a crayon study in which the tones have merged and gradually lost character. The past had paled before the present—as golden hair might pale before black. The simile came with apparent irrelevance. Then again Blessington pressed his arm.

"Now, sir!" he said, drawing away and lifting the curtain that hung before the entrance of the tent.

Loder looked at the amused, boyish face lighted by the hanging lamp, and smiled pleasantly; then, with a shrug of the shoulders, he entered the pavilion and the curtain fell behind him.



XV

On entering the pavilion, Loder's first feeling was one of annoyed awkwardness at finding himself in almost total darkness. But as his eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, the feeling vanished and the absurdity of the position came to his mind.

The tent was small, heavily draped with silk and smelling of musk. It was divided into two sections by an immovable curtain that hung from the roof to within a few feet of the floor. The only furniture on Loder's side was one low chair, and the only light a faint radiance that, coming from the invisible half of the pavilion; spread across the floor in a pale band. For a short space he stood uncertain, then his hesitation was brought to an end.

"Please sit down," said a low, soft voice.

For a further moment he stood undecided. The voice sounded so unexpectedly near. In the quiet and darkness of the place it seemed to possess a disproportionate weight—almost the weight of a familiar thing. Then, with a sudden, unanalyzed touch of relief, he located the impression. It was the similarity to Lady Bramfell's sweet, slow tones that had stirred his mind. With a sense of satisfaction he drew the chair forward and sat down.

Then, for the first time, he saw that on the other side of the gauze partition, and below it by a few inches, was a small table of polished wood, on which stood an open book, a crystal ball, and a gold dish filled with ink. These were arranged on the side of the table nearest to him, the farther side being out of his range of vision. An amused interest touched him as he made his position more comfortable. Whoever this woman was, she had an eye for stage management, she knew how to marshal her effects. He found himself waiting with some curiosity for the next injunction from behind the curtain.

"The art of crystal-gazing," began the sweet, slow voice after a pause, "is one of the oldest known arts." Loder sat forward. The thought of Lady Bramfell mingled disconcertingly with some other thought more distant and less easy to secure.

"To obtain the best results," went on the seer, "the subject lays his uncovered hands outspread upon a smooth surface." It was evident that the invisible priestess was reading from the open book, for when the word "surface" was reached there was a slight stir that indicated the changing of position; and when. the voice came again it was in a different tone.

"Please lay your hands, palms downward, upon the table."

Loder smiled to himself in the darkness. He pictured Chilcote with his nerves and his impatience going through this ordeal; then in good-humored silence he leaned forward and obeyed the command. His hands rested on the smooth surface of the table in the bar of light from the unseen lamp.

There was a second in which the seer was silent; then he fancied that she raised her head.

"You must take off your rings," she said smoothly. "Any metal interferes with the sympathetic current."

At any other time Loder would have laughed; but the request so casually and graciously made sent all possibility of irony far into the background. The thought of Chilcote and of the one flaw in their otherwise flawless scheme rose to his mind. Instinctively he half withdrew his hands.

"Where is the sympathetic current?" he asked, quietly. His thoughts were busy with the question of whether he would or would not be justified in beating an undignified retreat.

"Between you and me, of course," said the voice, softly. It sounded languid, but very rational. The idea of retreat seemed suddenly theatrical. In this world of low voices and shaded lights people never adopted extreme measures—no occasion made a scene practicable, or even allowable. He leaned back slowly, while he summed up the situation. If by any unlucky chance this woman knew Chilcote to have adopted jewelry and had seen the designs of his rings, the sight of his own scarred finger would suggest question and comment; if, on the other hand, he left the pavilion without excuse, or if, without apparent reason, he refused to remove the rings, he opened up a new difficulty—a fresh road to curiosity. It came upon him with unusual quickness—the obstacles to, and the need for, a speedy decision. He glanced round the tent, then unconsciously he straightened his shoulders. After all, he had stepped into a tight corner, but there was no need to cry out in squeezing his way back. Then he realized that the soft, ingratiating tones were sounding once more.

"It's the passing of my hands over yours, while I look into the crystal, that sets up sympathy"—a slender hand moved swiftly into the light and picked up the ball—"and makes my eyes see the pictures in your mind. Now, will you please take off your rings?"

The very naturalness of the request disarmed him. It was a risk. But, as Chilcote had said, risk was the salt of life!

"I'm afraid you think me very troublesome." The voice came again, delicately low and conciliatory.

For a brief second Loder wondered uncertainly how long or how well Chilcote knew Lady Astrupp; then he dismissed the question. Chilcote had never mentioned her until to-night, and then casually as Lady Bramfell's sister. What a coward he was becoming in throwing the dice with Fate! Without further delay he drew off the rings, slipped them into his pocket, and replaced his hands on the smooth table-top.

Then, at the moment that he replaced them, a peculiar thing occurred.

From the farther side of the dark partition came the quick, rustling stir of a skirt, and the slight scrape of a chair pushed either backward or forward. Then there was silence.

Now, silence can suggest anything, from profound thought to imbecility; but in this case its suggestion was nil. That something had happened, that some change had taken place, was as patent to Loder as the darkness of the curtain or the band of light that crossed the floor, but what had occasioned it, or what it stood for, he made no attempt to decide. He sat bitingly conscious of his hands spread open on the table under the scrutiny of eyes that were invisible to him vividly aware of the awkwardness of his position. He felt with instinctive certainty that a new chord had been struck; but a man seldom acts on instinctive certainties. If the exposure of his hands had struck this fresh note, then any added action would but heighten the dilemma. He sat silent and motionless.

Whether his impassivity had any bearing on the moment he had no way of knowing; but no further movement came from behind the partition. Whatever the emotions that had caused the sharp swish of skirts and the sharp scrape of the chair, they had evidently subsided or been dominated by other feelings.

The next indication of life that came to him was the laying down of the crystal ball. It was laid back upon the table with a slight jerk that indicated a decision come to; and almost simultaneously the seer's voice came to him again. Her tone was lower now than it had been before, and its extreme ease seemed slightly shaken—whether by excitement, surprise, or curiosity, it was impossible to say.

"You will think it strange—" she began. "You will think—" Then she stopped.

There was a pause, as though she waited for some help, but Loder remained mute. In difficulty a silent tongue and a cool head are usually man's best weapons.

His silence was disconcerting. He heard her stir again.

"You will think it strange—" she began once more. Then quite suddenly she checked and controlled her voice. "You must forgive me for what I am going to say," she added, in a completely different tone, "but crystal-gazing is such an illusive thing. Directly you put your hands upon the table I felt that there would be no result; but I wouldn't admit the defeat. Women are such keen anglers that they can never acknowledge that any fish, however big, has slipped the hook." She laughed softly.

At the soand of the laugh Loder shifted his position for the first time. He could not have told why, but it struck him with a slight sense of confusion. A precipitate wish to rise and pass through the doorway into the wider spaces of the conservatory came to him, though he made no attempt to act upon it. He knew that, for some inexplicable reason, this woman behind the screen had lied to him—in the controlling of her speech, in her charge of voice. There had been one moment in which an impulse or an emotion had almost found voice; then training, instinct, or it might have been diplomacy, had conquered, and the moment had passed. There was a riddle in the very atmosphere of the place—and he abominated riddles.

But Lady Astrupp was absorbed in her own concerns. Again she changed her position; and to Loder, listening attentively, it seemed that she leaned forward and examined his hands afresh. The sensation was so acute that he withdrew them involuntarily.

Again there was a confused rustle; the crystal ball rolled from the table, and the seer laughed quickly. Obeying a strenuous impulse, Loder rose.

He had no definite notion of what he expected or what he must avoid. He was only conscious that the pavilion, with its silk draperies, its scent of musk, and its intolerable secrecy, was no longer endurable. He felt cramped and confused in mind and muscle. He stood for a second to straighten his limbs; then he turned, and, moving directly forward, passed through the portiere.

After the dimness of the pavilion the conservatory seemed comparatively bright; but without waiting to grow accustomed to the altered light he moved onward with deliberate haste. The long, green alley, was speedily traversed; in his eyes it no longer possessed greenness, no longer suggested freshness or repose. It was simply a means to the end upon which his mind was set.

As he passed up the flight of steps he drew his rings from his pocket and slipped them on again. Then he stepped into the glare of the thronged corridor.

Some one hailed him as be passed through the crowd, but with Chilcote's most absorbed manner he hurried on. Through the door of the supper-room he caught sight of Blessington and Eve, and then for the first time his expression changed, and he turned directly towards them.

"Eve," he said, "will you excuse me? I have a word to say to Blessington."

She glanced at him in momentary surprise; then she smiled in her quiet, self-possessed way.

"Of course!" she said. "I've been wanting a chat with Millicent Gower, but Bobby has required so much entertaining—" She smiled again, this time at Blessington, and moved away towards a pale girl in green who was standing alone.

Instantly she had turned Loder took Blessington's arm.

"I know you're tremendously busy," he began, in an excellent imitation of Chilcote's hasty manner—" I know you're tremendously busy, but I'm in a fix."

One glance at Blessington's healthy, ingenuous face told him that plain speaking was the method to adopt.

"Indeed, sir?" In a moment Blessington was on the alert.

"Yes. And I—I want your help."

The boy reddened. That Chilcote should appeal to him stirred him to an uneasy feeling of pride and uncertainty.

Loder saw his advantage and pressed it home. "It's come about through this crystal-gazing business. I'm afraid I didn't play my part—rather made an ass of myself; I wouldn't swallow the thing, and—and Lady Astrupp—" He paused, measuring Blessington with a glance. "Well, my dear boy, you—you know what women are!"

Blessington was only twenty-three. He reddened again, and assumed an air of profundity. "I know. sir," he said, with a shake of the head.

Loder's sense of humor was keen, but he kept a grave face. "I knew you'd catch my meaning; but I want you to do something more. If Lady Astrupp should ask you who was in her tent this past ten minutes, I want you—" Again he stopped, looking at his companion's face.

"Yes, sir?"

"I want you to tell an immaterial lie for me."

Blessington returned his glance; then he laughed a little uncomfortably. "But surely, sir—"

"She recognized me, you mean?" Loder's eyes were as keen as steel.

Yes."

"Then you're wrong. She didn't."

Blessington's eyebrows went up.

There was silence. Loder glanced across the room. Eve had parted from the girl in green and was moving towards them, exchanging smiles and greetings as she came.

"My wife is coming back," he said. "Will you do this for me, Blessington? It—it will smooth things—" He spoke quickly, continuing to watch Eve. As he had hoped, Blessington's eyes turned in the same direction. "'Twill smooth matters," he repeated, "smooth them in—in a domestic way that I can't explain."

The shot told. Blessington looked round.

"Right, sir!" he said. "You may leave it to me," And before Loder could speak again he had turned and disappeared into the crowd.



XVI

His business with Blessington over, Loder breathed more freely. If Lady Astrupp had recognized Chilcote by the rings, and had been roused to curiosity, the incident would demand settlement sooner or later—settlement in what proportion he could hazard no guess; if, on the other hand, her obvious change of manner had arisen from any other source he had a hazy idea that a woman's behavior could never be gauged by accepted theories—then he had safeguarded Chilcote's interests and his own by his securing of Blessington's promise. Blessington he knew would be reliable and discreet. With a renewal of confidence—a pleasant feeling that his uneasiness had been groundless—he moved forward to greet Eve.

Her face, with its rich, clear coloring, seemed to his gaze to stand out from the crowd of other faces as from a frame, and a sense of pride touched him. In every eye but his own her beauty belonged to him.

His face looked alive and masterful as she reached his side. "May I monopolize you?" he said, with the quickness of speech borrowed from Chilcote. "We see so little of each other."

Almost as if compelled, her lashes lifted and her eyes met his. Her glance was puzzled, uncertain, slightly confused. There was a deeper color than usual in her cheeks. Loder felt something within his own consciousness stir in response.

"You know you are yielding," he said.

Again she blushed.

He saw the blush, and knew that it was he—his words, his personality—that had called it forth. In Chilcote's actual semblance he had proved his superiority over Chilcote. For the first time he had been given a tacit, personal acknowledgment of his power. Involuntarily he drew nearer to her.

"Let's get out of this crush."

She made no answer except to bend her head; and it came to him that, for all her pride, she liked—and unconsciously yielded to—domination. With a satisfied gesture he turned to make a passage towards the door.

But the passage was more easily desired than made. In the few moments since he had entered the supper-room the press of people had considerably thickened—until a block had formed about the door-way. Drawing Eve with him, he moved forward for a dozen paces, then paused, unable to make further headway.

As they stood there, he looked back at her. "What a study in democracy a crowd always is!" he said.

She responded with a bright, appreciative glance, as if surprised into naturalness. He wondered sharply what she would be like if her enthusiasms were really aroused. Then a stir in the corridor outside caused a movement inside the room; and with a certain display of persistence he was enabled to make a passage to the door.

There again they were compelled to halt. But though tightly wedged into his new position and guarding Eve with one arm, Loder was free to survey the brilliantly thronged corridor over the head of a man a few inches shorter than himself, who stood directly in front of him.

"What are we waiting for?" he asked, good humoredly, addressing the back of the stranger's head.

The man turned, displaying a genial face, a red mustache, and an eye-glass.

"Hullo, Chilcote!" he said. "Hope it's not on your feet I'm standing."

Loder laughed. "No," he said. "And don't change the position. If you were an inch higher I should be blind as well as crippled."

The other laughed. It was a pleasant surprise to find Chilcote amiable under discomfort. He looked round again in slight curiosity.

Loder felt the scrutiny. To create a diversion he looked out along the corridor. "I believe we are waiting for something," he exclaimed. "What's this?" Then quite abruptly be ceased to speak.

"Anything interesting?" Eve touched his arm.

He said nothing; he made no effort to look round. His thought as well as his speech was suddenly suspended.

The man in front of him let his eye-glass fall from his eye, then screwed it in again.

"Jove!" he exclaimed. "Here comes our sorceress. It's like the progress of a fairy princess. I believe this is the meaning of our getting penned in here," he chuckled delightedly.

Loder said nothing. He stared straight on over the other's head.

Along the corridor, agreeably conscious of the hum of admiration she aroused, came Lillian Astrupp, surrounded by a little court. Her delicate face was lit up; her eyes shone under the faint gleam of her hair; her gown of gold embroidery swept round her gracefully. She was radiant and triumphant, but she was also excited. The excitement was evident in her laugh, in her gestures, in her eyes, as they turned quickly in one direction and then another.

Loder, gazing in stupefaction over the other man's head, saw it—felt and understood it with a mind that leaped back over a space of years. As in a shifting panorama he saw a night of disturbance and confusion in a far-off Italian valley—a confusion from which one face shone out with something of the pale, alluring radiance that filtered over the hillside from the crescent moon. It passed across his consciousness slowly but with a slow completeness; and in its light the incidents of the past hour stood out in a new aspect. The echo of recollection stirred by Lady Bramfell's voice, the re-echo of it in the sister's tones; his own blindness, his own egregious assurance—all struck across his mind.

Meanwhile the party about Lillian drew nearer. He felt with instinctive certainty that the supper-room was its destination, but he remained motionless, held by a species of fatalism. He watched her draw near with an unmoved face, but in the brief space that passed while she traversed the corridor he gauged to the full the hold that the new atmosphere, the new existence, had gained over his mind. With an unlooked-for rush of feeling he realized how dearly he would part with it.

As Lillian came closer, the meaning of her manner became clearer to him. She talked incessantly, laughing now and then, but her eyes were never quiet. These skimmed the length of the corridor, then glanced over the heads crowded in the door-way.

"I'll have something quite sweet, Geoffrey," she was saying to the man beside her, as she came within hearing. "You know what I like—a sort of snowflake wrapped up in sugar." As she said the words her glance wandered. Loder saw it rest uninterestedly on a boy a yard or two in front of him, then move to the man over whose head he gazed, then lift itself inevitably to his face.

The glance was quick and direct. He saw the look of recognition spring across it; he saw her move forward suddenly as the crowd in the corridor parted to let her pass. Then he saw what seemed to him a miracle.

Her whole expression altered, her lips parted, and she colored with annoyance. She looked like a spoiled child who, seeing a bonbon-box, opens it—to find it empty.

As the press about the door-way melted to give her passage, the red-haired man in front of Loder was the first to take advantage of the space. "Jove! Lillian," he said, moving forward, "you look as if you expected Chilcote to be somebody else, and are disappointed to find he's only himself!" He laughed delightedly at his own joke.

The words were exactly the tonic that Lillian needed. She smiled her usual undisturbed smile as she turned her eyes upon him.

"My dear Leonard, you're using your eye-glass; when that happens you're never responsible for what you see." Her words came more slowly and with a touch of languid amusement. Her composure was suddenly restored.

Then for the first time Loder changed his position. Moved by an impulse he made no effort to dissect, he stepped back to Eve's side and slipped his arm through hers—successfully concealing his left hand.

The warmth of her skin through her long glove thrilled him unexpectedly. His impulse had been one of self-defence, but the result was of a different character. At the quick contact the wish to fight for—to hold and defend—the position that had grown so dear woke in renewed force. With a new determination he turned again towards Lillian.

"I caught the same impression—without an eyeglass," he said. "Why did you look like that?" He asked the question steadily and with apparent carelessness, though, through it all, his reason stood aghast—his common-sense cried aloud that it was impossible for the eyes that had seen his face in admiration, in love, in contempt, to fail now in recognition. The air seemed breathless while he spoke and waited. His impression of Lillian was a mere shimmering of gold dress and gold hair; all that he was really conscious of was the pressure of his hand on Eve's arm and the warmth of her skin through the soft glove. Then, abruptly, the mist lifted. He saw Lillian's eyes—indifferent, amused, slightly contemptuous; and a second later he heard her voice.

"My dear Jack," she said, sweetly, "how absurd of you! It was simply the contrast of your eyes peering over Leonard's hair It was like a gorgeous sunset with a black cloud overhead." She laughed. "Do you see what I mean, Eve?" She affected to see Eve for the first time.

Eve had been looking calmly ahead. She turned now and smiled serenely. Loder felt no vibration of the arm he held, yet by an instant intuition he knew that the two women were antagonistic. He experienced it with the divination that follows upon a moment of acute suspense. He understood it, as he had understood Lillian's look of recognition when his forehead, eyes, and nose had shown him to be himself; her blank surprise when his close-shaven lip and chin had proclaimed him Chilcote.

He felt like a man who has looked into an abyss and stepped back from the edge, outwardly calm but mentally shaken. The commonplaces of life seemed for the moment to hold deeper meanings. He did not hear Eve's answer, he paid no heed to Lillian's next remark. He saw her smile and turn to the red-haired man; finally he saw her move on into the supper-room, followed by her little court. Then he pressed the arm he was still holding. He felt an urgent need of companionship—of a human expression to the crisis he had passed.

"Shall we get out of this?" he asked again.

Eve looked up. "Out of the room?" she said.

He looked down at her, compelling her gaze. "Out of the room —and the house," he answered. "Let us go-home."



XVII

The necessary formalities of departure were speedily got through. The passing of the corridors, the gaining of the carriage, seemed to Loder to be marvellously simple proceedings. Then, as he sat by Eve's side and again felt the forward movement of the horses, he had leisure for the first time to wonder whether the time that had passed since last he occupied that position had actually been lived through.

Only that night he had unconsciously compared one incident in his life to a sketch in which the lights and shadows have been obliterated and lost. Now that picture rose before him, startlingly and incredibly intact. He saw the sunlit houses of Santasalare, backgrounded by the sunlit hills—saw them as plainly as when he himself had sketched them on his memory. Every detail of the scene remained the same, even to the central figure; only the eye and the hand of the artist had changed.

At this point Eve broke in upon his thoughts. Her first words were curiously coincidental.

"What did you think of Lillian Astrupp to-night?" she asked. "Wasn't her gown perfect?"

Loder lifted his head with an almost guilty start. Then he answered straight from his thoughts.

"I—I didn't notice it," he said; "but her eyes reminded me of a cat's eyes—and she walks like a cat. I never seemed to see it—until to-night."

Eve changed her position. "She was very artistic," she said, tentatively. "Don't you think the gold gown was beautiful with her pale-colored hair?"

Loder felt surprised. He was convinced that Eve disliked the other and he was not sufficiently versed in women to understand her praise. "I thought—" he began. Then he wisely stopped. "I didn't see the gown," he substituted.

Eve looked out of the window. "How unappreciative men are!" she said. But her tone was strangely free from censure.

After this there was silence until Grosvenor Square was reached. Having left the carriage and passed into the house, Eve paused for a moment at the foot of the stairs to give an order to Crapham, who was still in attendance in the hall; and again Loder had an opportunity of studying her. As he looked, a sharp comparison rose to his mind.

"A fairy princess!" he had heard the red-haired man say as Lillian Astrupp came into view along the Bramfells' corridor, and the simile had seemed particularly apt. With her grace, her delicacy, her subtle attraction, she might well be the outcome of imagination. But with Eve it was different. She also was graceful and attractive—but it was grace and attraction of a different order. One was beautiful with the beauty of the white rose that springs from the hot-house and withers at the first touch of cold; the other with the beauty of the wild rose on the cliffs above the sea, that keeps its petals fine and transparent in face of salt spray and wet mist. Eve, too, had her realm, but it was the realm of real things. A great confidence, a feeling that here one might rely even if all other faiths were shaken, touched him suddenly. For a moment he stood irresolute, watching her mount the stairs with her easy, assured step. Then a determination came to him. Fate favored him to-night; he was in luck tonight. He would put his fortune to one more test. He swung across the hall and ran up the stairs.

His face was keen with interest as he reached her side. The hard outline of his features and the hard grayness of his eyes were softened as when he had paused to talk with Lakely. Action was the breath of his life, and his face changed under it as another's might change under the influence of stirring music or good wine.

Eve saw the look and again the uneasy expression of surprise crossed her eyes. She paused, her hand resting on the banister.

Loder looked at her directly. "Will you come into the study —as you came that other night? There's something I want to say." He spoke quietly. He felt master of himself and of her.

She hesitated, glanced at him, and then glanced away.

"Will you come?" he said again. And as he said it his eyes rested on the sweep of her thick eyelashes, the curve of the black hair.

At last her lashes lifted, and the perplexity and doubt in her blue eyes stirred him. Without waiting for her answer, he leaned forward.

"Say yes!" he urged. "I don't often ask for favors."

Still she hesitated; then her decision was made for her. With a new boldness he touched her arm, drawing her forward gently but decisively towards Chilcote's rooms.

In the study a fire burned brightly, the desk was laden with papers, the lights were nicely adjusted; even the chairs were in their accustomed places. Loder's senses responded to each suggestion. It seemed but a day since he had seen it last. It was precisely as he had left it—the niche needing but the man.

To hide his emotion he crossed the floor quickly and drew a chair forward. In less than six hours he had run up and down the scale of emotions. He had looked despair in the face, till the sudden sight of Chilcote had lifted him to the skies; since then, surprise had assailed him in its strongest form; he had known the full meaning of the word "risk"; and from every contingency he had come out conqueror. He bent over the chair as he pulled it forward, to hide the expression in his eyes.

"Sit down," he said, gently.

Eve moved towards him. She moved slowly, as if half afraid. Many emotions stirred her—distrust, uncertainty, and a curious half-dominant, half-suppressed questioning that it was difficult to define. Loder remembered her shrinking coldness, her reluctant tolerance on the night of his first coming, and his individuality, his certainty of power, kindled afresh. Never had he been so vehemently himself; never had Chilcote seemed so complete a shadow.

As Eve seated herself, he moved forward and leaned over the back of her chair. The impulse that had filled him in his interview with Renwick, that had goaded him as he drove to the reception, was dominant again.

"I tried to say something as we drove to the Bramfells' to-night," he began. Like many men who possess eloquence for an impersonal cause, he was brusque, even blunt, in the stating of his own case. "May I hark back, and go on from where I broke off?"

Eve half turned. Her face was still puzzled and questioning. "Of course." She sat forward again, clasping her hands.

He looked thoughtfully at the back of her head, at the slim outline of her shoulders, the glitter of the diamonds about her neck.

"Do you remember the day, three weeks ago, that we talked together in this room? The day a great many things seemed possible?"

This time she did not look round. She kept her gaze upon the fire.

"Do you remember?" he persisted, quietly. In his college days men who heard that tone of quiet persistence had been wont to lose heart. Eve heard it now for the first time, and, without being aware, answered to it.

"Yes, I remember," she said.

"On that day you believed in me—" In his earnestness he no longer simulated Chilcote; he spoke with his own steady reliance. He saw Eve stir, unclasp and clasp her hands, but he went steadily on. "On that day you saw me in a new light. You acknowledged me." He emphasized the slightly peculiar word. "But since that day"—his voice quickened "since that day your feelings have changed—your faith in me has fallen away." He watched her closely; but she made no sign, save to lean still nearer to the fire. He crossed his arms over the back of her chair. "You were justified," he said, suddenly. "I've not been—myself since that day." As he said the words his coolness forsook him slightly. He loathed the necessary lie, yet his egotism clamored for vindication. "All men have their lapses," he went on; "there are times—there are days and weeks when I—when my—" The word "nerves" touched his tongue, hung upon it, then died away unspoken.

Very quietly, almost without a sound, Eve had risen and turned towards him. She was standing very straight, her face a little pale, the hand that rested on the arm of her chair trembling slightly.

"John," she said, quickly, "don't say that word? Don't say that hideous word 'nerves'! I don't feel that I can bear it to-night—not just to-night. Can you understand?"

Loder stepped back. Without comprehending, he felt suddenly and strangely at a loss. Something in her face struck him silent and perplexed. It seemed that without preparation he had stepped upon dangerous ground. With an undefined apprehension he waited, looking at her.

"I can't explain it," she went on with nervous haste, "I can't give any reasons, but quite suddenly the—the farce has grown unbearable. I used not to think—used not even to care—but suddenly things have changed—or I have changed." She paused, confused and distressed. "Why should it be? Why should things change?" She asked the question sharp. ly, as if in appeal against her own incredulity.

Loder turned aside. He was afraid of the triumph, volcanic and irrepressible, that her admission roused.

"Why?" she said again.

He turned slowly back. "You forget that I'm not a magician," he said, gently. "I hardly know what you are speaking of."

For a moment she was silent, but in that moment her eyes spoke. Pain, distress, pride, all strove for expression; then at last her lips parted.

"Do you say that in seriousness?" she asked.

It was no moment for fencing, and Loder knew it. "In seriousness," he replied, shortly.

"Then I shall speak seriously, too." Her voice shook slightly and the color came back into her face, but the hand on the arm of the chair ceased to tremble. "For more than four years I have known that you take drugs—for more than four years I have acquiesced in your deceptions—in your meannesses—"

There was an instant's silence. Then Loder stepped forward.

"You knew—for four years?" he said, very slowly. For the first time that night he remembered Chilcote and forgot himself.

Eve lifted her head with a quick gesture—as if, in flinging off discretion and silence, she appreciated to the full the new relief of speech.

"Yes, I knew. Perhaps I should have spoken when I first surprised the secret, but it's all so past that it's useless to speculate now. It was fate, I suppose. I was very young, you were very unapproachable, and—and we had no love to make the way easy." For a second her glance faltered and she looked away. "A woman's—a girl's—disillusioning is a very sad comedy—it should never have an audience." She laughed a little bitterly as she looked back again. "I saw all the deceits, all the subterfuges, all the—lies." She said the word deliberately, meeting his eyes.

Again he thought of Chilcote, but his face paled.

"I saw it all. I lived with it all till I grew hard and indifferent—till I acquiesced in your 'nerves' as readily as the rest of the world that hadn't suspected and didn't know." Again she laughed nervously. "And I thought the indifference would last forever. If one lives in a groove for years, one gets frozen up; I never felt more frozen than on the night Mr. Fraide spoke to me of you—asked me to use my influence; then, on that night—"

"Yes. On that night?" Loder's voice was tense.

But her excitement had suddenly fallen. Whether his glance had quelled it or whether the force of her feelings had worked itself out it was impossible to say, but her eyes had lost their resolution. She stood hesitating for a moment, then she turned and moved to the mantel-piece.

"That night you found me—changed?" Loder was insistent.

"Changed—and yet not changed." She spoke reluctantly, with averted head.

"And what did you think?"

Again she was silent; then again a faint excitement tinged her cheeks.

"I thought—" she began. "It seemed—" Once more she paused, hampered by her own uncertainty, her own sense of puzzling incongruity. "I don't know why I speak like this," she went on at last, as if in justification of herself, "or why I want to speak. But a feeling—an extraordinary, incomprehensible feeling seems to urge me on. The same feeling that came to me on the day we had tea together—the feeling that made me—that almost made me believe—"

"Believe what?" The words escaped him without volition.

At sound of his voice she turned. "Believe that a miracle had happened," she said—"that you had found strength—had freed yourself."

"From morphia?"

"From morphia."

In the silence that followed, Loder lived through a century of suggestion and indecision. His first feeling was for himself, but his first clear thought was for Chilcote and their compact. He stood, metaphorically, on a stone in the middle of a stream, balancing on one foot, then the other; looking to the right bank, then to the left. At last, as it always did, inspiration came to him slowly. He realized that by one plunge he might save both Chilcote and himself!

He crossed quickly to the fireplace and stood by Eve. "You were right in your belief," he said. "For all that time from the night you spoke to me of Fraide to the day you had tea in this room—I never touched a drug."

She moved suddenly, and he saw her face. "John," she said, unsteadily, "you—I—I have known you to lie to me—about other things."

With a hasty movement he averted his head. The doubt, the appeal in her words shocked him. The whole isolation of her life seemed summed up in the one short sentence. For the instant he forgot Chilcote. With a reaction of feeling he turned to her again.

"Look at me!" he said, brusquely.

She raised her eyes.

"Do you believe I'm speaking the truth?"

She searched his eyes intently, the doubt and hesitancy still struggling in her face.

"But the last three weeks?" she said, reluctantly. "How can you ask me to believe?"

He had expected this, and he met it steadily enough; nevertheless his courage faltered. To deceive this woman, even to justify himself, had in the last halfhour become something sacrilegious.

"The last three weeks must be buried," he said, hurriedly. "No man could free himself suddenly from—from a vice." He broke off abruptly. He hated Chilcote; he hated himself. Then Eve's face, raised in distressed appeal, overshadowed all scruples. "You have been silent and patient for years," he said, suddenly. "Can you be patient and silent a little longer?" He spoke without consideration. He was conscious of no selfishness beneath his words. In the first exercise of conscious strength the primitive desire to reduce all elements to his own sovereignty submerged every other emotion. "I can't enter into the thing," he said; "like you, I give no explanations. I can only tell you that on the day we talked together in this room I was myself—in the full possession of my reason, the full knowledge of my own capacities. The man you have known in the last three weeks, the man you have imagined in the last four years, is a shadow, an unreality—a weakness in human form. There is a new Chilcote—if you will only see him."

Ewe was trembling as he ceased; her face was flushed; there was a strange brightness in her eyes She was moved beyond herself.

"But the other you—the old you?"

"You must be patient." He looked down into the fire. "Times like the last three weeks will come again—must come again; they are inevitable. When they do come, you must shut your eyes—you must blind yourself. You must ignore them—and me. Is it a compact?" He still avoided her eyes.

She turned to him quietly. "Yes—if you wish it," she said, below her breath.

He was conscious of her glance, but he dared not meet it. He felt sick at the part he was playing, yet he held to it tenaciously.

"I wonder if you could do what few men and fewer women are capable of?" he asked, at last. "I wonder if you could learn to live in the present?" He lifted his head slowly and met her eyes. "This is an—an experiment," he went on. "And, like all experiments, it has good phases and bad. When the bad phases come round I—I want you to tell yourself that you are not altogether alone in your unhappiness—that I am suffering too—in another way."

There was silence when he had spoken, and for a space it seemed that Eve would make no response. Then the last surprise in a day of surprises came to him. With a slight stir, a slight, quick rustle of skirts, she stepped forward and laid her hand in his.

The gesture was simple and very sweet; her eyes were soft and full of light as she raised her face to his, her lips parted in unconscious appeal.

There is no surrender so seductive as the surrender of a proud woman. Loder's blood stirred, the undeniable suggestion of the moment thrilled and disconcerted him in a tumult of thought. Honor, duty, principle rose in a triple barrier; but honor, duty, and principle are but words to a headstrong man. Tho full significance of his position came to him as it had never come before. His hand closed on hers; he bent towards her, his pulses beating unevenly.

"Eve!" he said. Then at sound of his voice he suddenly hesitated. It was the voice of a man who has forgotten everything but his own existence.

For an instant he stayed motionless; then very quietly he drew away from her, releasing her hands.

"No," he said. "No—I haven't got the right,"



XVIII

That night, for almost the first time since he had adopted his dual role, Loder slept ill. He was not a man over whom imagination held any powerful sway—his doubts and misgivings seldom ran to speculation, upon future possibilities; nevertheless, the fact that, consciously or unconsciously, he had adopted a new attitude towards Eve came home to him with unpleasant force during the hours of darkness; and long before the first hint of daylight had slipped through the heavy window-curtains he had arranged a plan of action—a plan wherein, by the simple method of altogether avoiding her, he might soothe his own conscience and safeguard Chilcote's domestic interests.

It was a satisfactory if a somewhat negative arrangement, and he rose next morning with a feeling that things had begun to shape themselves. But chance sometimes has a disconcerting knack of forestalling even our best-planned schemes. He dressed slowly, and descended to his solitary breakfast with the pleasant sensation of having put last night out of consideration by the turning over of a new leaf; but scarcely had he opened Chilcote's letters, scarcely had he taken a cursory glance at the morning's newspaper, than it was borne in upon him that not only a new leaf, but a whole sheaf of new leaves, had been turned in his prospects—by a hand infinitely more powerful and arbitrary than his own. He realized within the space of a few moments that the leisure Eve might have claimed, the leisure he might have been tempted to devote to her, was no longer his to dispose of—being already demanded of him from a quarter that allowed of no refusal.

For the first rumbling of the political earthquake that was to shake the country made itself audible beyond denial on that morning of March 27th, when the news spread through England that, in view of the disorganized state of the Persian army and the Shah's consequent inability to suppress the open insurrection of the border tribes in the north-eastern districts of Meshed, Russia, with a great show of magnanimity, had come to the rescue by despatching a large armed force from her military station at Merv across the Persian frontier to the seat of the disturbance.

To many hundreds of Englishmen who read their papers on that morning this announcement conveyed bat little. That there is such a country as Persia we all know, that English interests predominate in the south and Russian interests in the north we have all superficially understood from childhood; but in this knowledge, coupled with the fact that Persia is comfortably far away, we are apt to rest content. It is only to the eyes that see through long-distance glasses, the minds that regard the present as nothing more nor less than an inevitable link joining the future to the past, that this distant, debatable land stands out in its true political significance.

To the average reader of news the statement of Russia's move seemed scarcely more important than had the first report of the border risings in January, but to the men who had watched the growth of the disturbance it came charged with portentous meaning. Through the entire ranks of the opposition, from Fraide himself downward, it caused a thrill of expectation —that peculiar prophetic sensation that every politician has experienced at some moment of his career.

In no member of his party did this feeling strike deeper root than in Loder. Imbued with a lifelong interest in the Eastern question, specially equipped by personal knowledge to hold and proclaim an opinion upon Persian affairs, he read the signs and portents with instinctive insight. Seated at Chilcote's table, surrounded by Chilcote's letters and papers, he forgot the breakfast that was slowly growing cold, forgot the interests and dangers, personal or pleasurable, of the night before, while his mental eyes persistently conjured up the map of Persia, travelling with steady deliberation from Merv to Meshed, from Meshed to Herat, from Herat to the empire of India! For it was not the fact that the Hazaras had risen against the Shah that occupied the thinking mind, nor was it the fact that Russian and not Persian troops were destined to subdue them, but the deeply important consideration that an armed Russian force had crossed the frontier and was encamped within twenty miles of Meshed-Meshed, upon which covetous Russian eyes have rested ever since the days of Peter the Great.

So Loder's thoughts ran as he read and reread the news from the varying political stand-points, and so they continued to run when, some hours later, an urgent telephone message from the 'St. George's Gazette' asked him to call at Lakely's office.

The message was interesting as well as imperative, and he made an instant response. The thought of Lakely's keen eyes and shrewd enthusiasms always possessed strong attractions for his own slower temperament, but even had this impetus been lacking, the knowledge that at the 'St. George's' offices, if anywhere, the true feelings of the party were invariably voiced would have drawn him without hesitation.

It was scarcely twelve o'clock when he turned the corner of the tall building, but already the keen spirit that Lakely everywhere diffused was making itself felt. Loder smiled to himself as his eyes fell on the day's placards with their uncompromising headings, and passed onward from the string of gayly painted carts drawn up to receive their first consignment of the paper to the troop of eager newsboys passing in and out of the big swing-doors with their piled-up bundles of the early edition; and with a renewed thrill of anticipation and energy he passed through the doorway and ran up-stairs.

Passing unchallenged through the long corridor that led to Lakely's office, he caught a fresh impression of action and vitality from the click of the tape machines in the subeditors' office, and a glimpse through the open door of the subeditors themselves, each occupied with his particular task; then without time for further observation he found himself at Lakely's door. Without waiting to knock, as he had felt compelled to do on the one or two previous occasions that business had brought him there, he immediately turned the handle and entered the room.

Editors' offices differ but little in general effect.

Lakely's surroundings were rather more elaborate than is usual, as became the dignity of the oldest Tory evening paper, but the atmosphere was unmistakable. As Loder entered he glanced up from the desk at which he was sitting, but instantly returned to his task of looking through and marking the pile of early evening editions that were spread around him. His coat was off and hung on the chair behind him, axed he pulled vigorously on a long cigar.

"Hullo! That's right," he said, laconically. "Make yourself comfortable half a second, while I skim the 'St. Stephen's'."

His salutation pleased Loder. With a nod of acquiescence he crossed the office to the brisk fire that burned in, the grate.

For a minute or two Lakely worked steadily, occasionally breaking the quiet by an unintelligible remark or a vigorous stroke of his pencil. At last he dropped the paper with a gesture of satisfaction and leaned back in his chair.

"Well," he said, "what d'you think of this? How's this for a complication?"

Loder turned round. "I think," he said, quietly, "that we can't overestimate it."

Lakely laughed and took a long pull at his cigar. "And we mustn't be afraid to let the Sefborough crowd know it, eh?" He waved his hand to the poster of the first edition that hung before his desk.

Loder, following his glance, smiled.

Lakely laughed again. "They might have known it all along, if they'd cared to deduce," he said. "Did they really believe that Russia was going to sit calmly looking across the Heri-Rud while the Shah played at mobilizing? But what became of you last night? We had a regular prophesying of the whole business at Bramfell's; the great Fraide looked in for five minutes. I went on with him to the club afterwards and was there when the news came in. 'Twas a great night!"

Loder's face lighted up. "I can imagine it," he said, with an unusual touch of warmth.

Lakely watched him intently for a moment. Then with a quick action he leaned forward and rested his elbows on the desk.

"It's going to be something more than imagination for you, Chilcote," he said, impressively. "It's going to be solid earnest!" He spoke rapidly and with rather more than his usual shrewd decisiveness; then he paused to see the effect of his announcement.

Loder was still studying the flaring poster. At the other's words he turned sharply. Something in Lakely's voice, something in his manner, arrested him. A tinge of color crossed his face.

"Reality?" he said. "What do you mean?"

For a further space his companion watched him; then with a rapid movement he tilted back his chair.

"Yes," he said. "Yes; old Fraide's instincts are never far out. He's quite right. You're the man!"

Still quietly, but with a strange underglow of excitement, Loder left the fire, and, coming forward, took a chair at Lakely's desk.

"Do you mind telling me what you're driving at?" he asked, in his old, laconic voice.

Lakely still scrutinized him with an air of brisk satisfaction; then with a gesture of finality he tossed his cigar away.

"My dear chap," he said, "there's going to be a breach somewhere—and Fraide says you're the man to step in and fill it! You see, five years ago, when things looked lively on the Gulf and the Bundar Abbas business came to light, you did some promising work; and a reputation like that sticks to a man —even when he turns slacker! I won't deny that you've slacked abominably," he added, as Loder made an uneasy movement, "but slacking has different effects. Some men run to seed, others mature. I had almost put you down on the black list, but I've altered my mind in the last two months."

Again Loder stirred in his seat. A host of emotions were stirring in his mind. Every word wrung from Lakely was another stimulus to pride, another subtle tribute to the curious force of personality.

"Well?" he said. "Well?"

Lakely smiled. "We all know that Sefborough's ministry is —well, top-heavy," he said. "Sefborough is building his card house just a story too high. It's a toss-up what 'll upset the balance. It might be the army, of course, or it might be education; but it might quite as well be a matter of foreign policy!"

They looked at each other in comprehensive silence.

"You know as well as I that it's not the question of whether Russia comes into Persia, but the question of whether Russia goes out of Persia when these Hazaras are subdued! I'll lay you what you like, Chilcote, that within one week we hear that the risings are suppressed, but that Russia, instead of retiring, has advanced those tempting twenty miles and comfortably ensconced herself at Meshed—as she ensconced herself on the island of Ashurada. Lakely's nervous, energetic figure was braced, his light-blue eyes brightened, by the intensity of his interest.

"If this news comes before the Easter recess," he went on, "the first nail can be hammered in on the motion for adjournment. And if the right man does it in the right way, I'll lay my life 'twill be a nail in Sefborough's coffin."

Loder sat very still. Overwhelming possibilities had suddenly opened before him. In a moment the unreality of the past months had become real; a tangible justification of himself and his imposture was suddenly made possible. In the stress of understanding he, too, leaned forward, and, resting his elbows on the desk, took his face between his hands.

For a space Lakely made no remark. To him man and man's moods came second in interest to his paper and his party politics. That Chilcote should be conscious of the glories he had opened up seemed only natural; that he should show that consciousness in a becoming gravity seemed only right. For some seconds he made no attempt to disturb him; but at last his own irrepressible activity made silence unendurable. He caught up his pencil and tapped impatiently on the desk.

"Chilcote," he said, quickly and with a gleam of sudden anxiety, "you're not by any chance doubtful of yourself?"

At sound of his voice Loder lifted his face; it was quite pale again, but the energy and resolution that had come into it when Lakely first spoke were still to be seen.

"No, Lakely," he said, very slowly, "it's not the sort of moment in which a man doubts himself,"



XIX

And so it came about that Loder was freed from one responsibility to undertake another. From the morning of March 27th, when Lakely had expounded the political programme in the offices of the 'St. George's Gazette', to the afternoon of April 1st he found himself a central figure in the whirlpool of activity that formed itself in Conservative circles.

With the acumen for which he was noted, Lakely had touched the key-stone of the situation on that morning; and succeeding events, each fraught with its own importance, had established the precision of his forecast.

Minutely watchful of Russia's attitude, Fraide quietly organized his forces and strengthened his position with a statesmanlike grasp of opportunity; and to Loder the attributes displayed by his leader during those trying days formed an endless and absorbing study. Setting the thought of Chilcote aside, ignoring his own position and the risks he daily ran, he had fully yielded to the glamour of the moment, and in the first freedom of a loose rein he had given unreservedly all that he possessed of activity, capacity, and determination to the cause that had claimed him.

Singularly privileged in a constant, personal contact with Fraide, he learned many valuable lessons of tact and organization in those five vital days during which the tactics of a whole party hung upon one item of news from a country thousands of miles away. For should Russia subdue the insurgent Hazaras and, laden with the honors of the peacemaker, retire across the frontier, then the political arena would remain undisturbed; but should the all-important movement predicted by Lakely become an accepted fact before Parliament rose for the Easter recess, then the first blow in the fight that would rage during the succeeding session must inevitably be struck. In the mean time it was Fraide's difficult position to wait and watch and yet preserve his dignity.

It was early in the afternoon of March 29th that Loder, in response to a long-standing invitation, lunched quietly with the Fraides. Being delayed by some communications from Wark, he was a few minutes late in keeping his appointment, and on being shown into the drawing-room found the little group of three that was to make up the party already assembled—Fraide, Lady Sarah—and Eve. As he entered the room they ceased to speak, and all three turned in his direction.

In the first moment he had a vague impression of responding suitably to Lady Sarah's cordial greeting; but he knew that immediately and unconsciously his eyes turned to Eve, while a quick sense of surprise and satisfaction passed through him at sight of her. For an instant he wondered how she would mark his avoidance of her since their last eventful interview; then instantly he blamed himself for the passing doubt. For, before all things, he knew her to be a woman of the world.

He took Fraide's outstretched hand; and again he looked towards Eve, waiting for her to speak.

She met his glance, but said nothing. Instead of speaking she smiled at him—a smile that was far more reassuring than any words, a smile that in a single second conveyed forgiveness, approbation, and a warm, almost tender sense of sympathy and comprehension. The remembrance of that smile stayed with him long after they were seated at table; and far into the future the remembrance of the lunch itself, with its pleasant private sense of satisfaction, was destined to return to him in retrospective moments. The delightful atmosphere of the Fraides' home life had always been a wonder and an enigma to him; but on this day he seemed to grasp its meaning by a new light, as he watched Eve soften under its influence and felt himself drawn imperceptibly from the position of a speculative outsider to that of an intimate. It was a fresh side to the complex, fascinating life of which Fraide was the master spirit.

These reflections had grown agreeably familiar to his mind; the talk, momentarily diverted into social channels, was quietly drifting back to the inevitable question of the "situation" that in private moments was never far from their lips, when the event that was to mark and separate that day from those that had preceded it was unceremoniously thrust upon them.

Without announcement or apology, the door was suddenly flung open and Lakely entered the room.

His face was brimming with excitement, and his eyes flashed. In the first haste of the entry he failed to see that there were ladies in the room, And, crossing instantly to Fraide, laid an open telegram before him.

"This is official, sir," he said. Then at last he glanced round the table.

"Lady Sarah!" he exclaimed. "Can you forgive me? But I'd have given a hundred pounds to be the first with this!" He glanced back at Fraide.

Lady Sarah rose and stretched out her hand. "Mr. Lakely," she said, "I more than understand!" There was a thrill in her warm, cordial voice, and her eyes also turned towards her husband.

Of the whole party, Fraide alone was perfectly calm. He sat very still, his small, thin figure erect and dignified, as his eyes scanned the message that meant so much.

Eve, who had sprung from her seat and passed round the table at sound of Lakely's news, was leaning over his shoulder, reading the telegram with him. At the last word she lifted her head, her face flushed with excitement.

"How splendid it must be to be a man!" she exclaimed. And without premeditation her eyes and Loder's met.

In this manner came the news from Persia, and with it Loder's definite call. In the momentary stress of action it was impossible that any thought of Chilcote could obtrude itself. Events had followed each other too rapidly, decisive action had been too much thrust upon him, to allow of hesitation; and it was in this spirit, under this vigorous pressure, that he made his attack upon the government on the day that followed Fraide's luncheon party.

That indefinable attentiveness, that alert sensation of impending storm. that is so strong an index of the parliamentary atmosphere was very keen on that memorable first of April. It was obvious in the crowded benches on both sides of the House—in the oneness of purpose that insensibly made itself felt through the ranks of the Opposition, and found definite expression in Fraide's stiff figure and tightly shut lips—in the unmistakable uneasiness that lay upon the ministerial benches.

But notwithstanding these indications of battle, the early portion of the proceedings was unmarked by excitement, being tinged with the purposeless lack of vitality that had of late marked all affairs of the Sefborough Ministry; and it was not until the adjournment of the House for the Easter recess had at last been moved that the spirit of activity hovering in the air descended and galvanized the assembly into life. It was then, amid a stir of interest, that Loder slowly rose.

Many curious incidents have marked the speech-making annals of the House of Commons, but it is doubtful whether it has ever been the lot of a member to hear his own voice raised for the first time on a subject of vital interest to his party, having been denied all initial assistance of minor questions asked or unimportant amendments made. Of all those gathered together in the great building on that day, only one man appreciated the difficulty of Loder's position —and that man was Loder himself.

He rose slowly and stood silent for a couple of seconds, his body braced, his fingers touching the sheaf of notes that lay in front of him. To the waiting House the silence was effective. It might mean over-assurance, or it might mean a failure of nerve at a critical moment. Either possibility had a tinge of piquancy. Moved by the same impulse, fifty pairs o eyes turned upon him with new interest; but up in the Ladies' Gallery Eve clasped her hands in sudden apprehension; and Fraide, sitting stiffly in his seat, turned and shot one swift glance at the man on whom, against prudence and precedent, he had pinned his faith. The glance was swift but very searching, and with a characteristic movement of his wiry shoulders he resumed his position and his usual grave, attentive attitude. At the same moment Loder lifted his head and began to speak.

Here at the outset his inexperience met him. His voice, pitched too low, only reached those directly near him. It was a moment of great strain. Eve, listening intently, drew a long breath of suspense and let her fingers drop apart; the sceptical, watchful eyes that faced him, line upon line, seemed to flash and brighten with critical interest; only Fraide made no change of expression. He sat placid, serious, attentive, with the shadow of a smile behind his eyes.

Again Loder paused, but this time the pause was shorter. The ordeal he had dreaded and waited for was passed and he saw his way clearly. With the old movement of the shoulders he straightened himself and once more began to speak. This time his voice rang quietly true and commanding across the floor of the House.

No first step can be really great; it must of necessity possess more of prophecy than of achievement; nevertheless it is by the first step that a man marks the value, not only of his cause, but of himself. Following broadly on the lines that tradition has laid down for the Conservative orator, Loder disguised rather than displayed the vein of strong, persuasive eloquence that was his natural gift. The occasion that might possibly justify such a display of individuality might lie with the future, but it had no application to the present. For the moment his duty was to voice his party sentiments with as much lucidity, as much logic, and as much calm conviction as lay within his capacity.