ced at his watch. It was
past eight o'clock. He could lose no more time. He must plunge boldly
into the subject of his mission and bring his visit promptly to an end.
He dreaded the temptation of that feminine room, with its coziness and
security and quiet. It made him too much alone with her; she was not a
woman that it was wise to be alone with too long.

The moment the maid had left them and the door had closed, he became
confirmed in the sanity of this decision. Everything in the room
appealed to him to procrastinate. The curtains before the French
windows were closely drawn. The hearth had been swept in their absence;
the fire glowed more companionably than ever. About the table, where the
coffee waited, a solitary lamp shed a golden blur. It was heavily shaded
with yellow silk, so that most of its light escaped their faces and fell
downwards.

She had seated herself on the couch. When she had filled both cups, she
glanced up at him smilingly, patting the vacant place beside her as a
sign that he should occupy it. He was standing before the fire, looking
immensely tall in the semi-darkness. He could see her plainly where she
sat beneath the lamp; but of him she could see nothing but his outline,
for his eyes were lost in shadow. When he seemed not to have noticed her
sign, "Come," she said coaxingly. "You don't spare yourself at all. You
make yourself tired by so much standing."

"Mrs. Lockwood----" She started as he called her that. Twice already she
had been Maisie to him. "Mrs. Lockwood, as you reminded me before
dinner, it was about you that I came here to talk. Let's get it over. I
haven't any idea how far things have gone. I should like to believe that
nine-tenths of what's said is nothing more than gossip. But why can't
you let him alone? He may mean nothing or a tremendous lot to you--but
why can't you?"

CHAPTER THE FIFTH

THE AIR OF CONQUEST

I

She sat very silently, the way he had seen men sit when they were
wounded. She had been expecting the blow and trying to postpone it; now
that it had fallen her only feeling was one of peace because the
expecting was ended. Her face remained turned towards him, as it had
been while he had been talking. As though a mask had dropped, the real,
very tired, very young, very lonely Maisie watched him. The wistfulness
of her beauty surprised and touched him. Several times her lips moved in
an attempt to say something. Then, at last, "What right have you