l I explain
it?--a powerful sense of the future. Ah, well, maybe this gift of mine
is leaving me, since I've refused to use it. I sha'n't be sorry." As
she got out of the car, she amended, "At least, I don't think I'm sorry
to have disappointed you."

The door snapped shut on that hope: the world became fluid again: and
Lilla was borne away toward another pity and another remorse.

CHAPTER XLIII

Hamoud opened the front door, and told her:

"They are waiting for you."

"They? Who is here?"

"Mr. Brantome."

She stood for a moment staring balefully at the stone knight above the
fireplace of the hall, who still raised his sightless face, and
brandished his blunt sword, with that stupid appearance of defying
everything. Then she tossed aside her cloak and hat, and went straight
into the living room, peeling off her gloves, saying in a gracious
voice:

"Hello! How nice! But how foolish to wait for me. You must both be
starved."

"No, but David has been imagining all sorts of calamities," Brantome
returned, with a loud, artificial laugh, and a look of anxiety in the
depths of his old eyes. As for the invalid, silent in his wheel chair
before the Flemish tapestry, he showed her a frozen smile, a travesty
of approval.

They went in to dinner. As soon as they had sat down she began, with
an unnatural vivacity, to tell them where she had been. That horse
show! It had never seemed so silly to her. The same old stable slang
interspersed with the same old scandal. And to-night Fanny Brassfield,
instead of falling upon her bed in a stupor of futility, was going to
give a big dinner for the very same people. "I'm surprised," she
exclaimed, turning her flushed face toward Brantome, "that you weren't
dragged into it. They usually sacrifice a captive from the land of
art."

David remained quite still, his frail shoulders bowed forward, his head
advanced, his eyes intently watching her moving lips. She could not
abate that frozen smile of his. Brantome, his portly body thrown back,
his white mane and long mustaches shimmering like spun glass in the
candle light, seemed still to wear on his tragical old face a look of
uneasiness. She had the feeling of sitting before two judges who were
weighing not only her words, but her tone of voice and appearance. She
wondered what appearance she presented.

"Why don't you eat your dinner?" she asked David.

"I am interested," he replied rather hoarsely.