er lap like a child.

"Don't try to understand," she heard him muttering. "Just try to ... to
forgive."

There was something at once piteous and repulsive, in that huge figure
crouching so humbly at her knee.

Sophy felt a choking sensation.

"Get up ... get up, dear," she pleaded. "I do forgive you! Please,
please get up!"

"Will you kiss me then?" came the muttering voice, muffled by her
skirts.

"Yes. Yes, I will. Only get up--do, dear, do!"

He knelt up, and, flinging his arms around her, reached his mouth
thirstily to hers. That kiss was a deathly draught to Sophy, but pity
made her accept it without shrinking visibly. In her mind the thought
went round and round: "Mystery--mystery. What was once like life to me
is now like death--worse." Then: "I must be kind to him. If I am kind
perhaps I can save him."

Chesney was fingering the folds of her gown shyly.

"I say--what a darling you look in this frock, Daphne," he said. "It
clings so--shows your lovely Greek body so beautifully. What's it made
of?"

"They call it Chudder Cloth," she said, smiling.

Chesney gasped, as if she had sprinkled water in his face, then, sinking
back upon the floor at her feet, he went into fits of the most
immoderate mirth. "Oh! Ah!" He could scarcely get his breath. "Forgive
me, Sophy! But 'Chudder Cloth'--'Chudder'--I never heard anything so
ludicrous in my life----"

And he rolled over on the floor, shaken from head to foot with
preposterous laughter, beating the carpet with his hands.

Sophy was used to these outbursts caused by some especial, yet
apparently trivial, word. Sometimes they took the form of mirth, as
to-day, sometimes that of rage. She remembered what Olive had told her.
Her heart felt very heavy.

There came a knock at the door. Chesney sprang to his feet, scowling at
the closed door.

"Come in!" said Sophy.

It was William, with a card on a tray.

"The Marquis Amaldi to see you, madam."

"Very well," said Sophy.

Cecil lighted another of his huge cigarettes.

"Who's this----foreigner?" he asked, amiably enough.

Inwardly Sophy contracted at the brutal adjective that she detested.
Outwardly she was unmoved.

"A friend of Count Varesca's. I met him at the Illinghams'--no, at the
Ponceforths' the other night."

"Mh!---- Well, so long. I'll make myself scarce for a bit. Can't stand
foreigners."

He started towards a side door, turned, came back, and lifting her hand
kissed it tenderly.