and presenting a
non-committal back to anyone who might chance to join them, "let us not
talk of that yet. I love you, and you are mine, and I am yours, whatever
happens."

An agony of terror took her strength as he spoke. Uncertainty was always
hard for her to bear, but in this vital matter she felt that she could
not endure it.

"If you are going to be cruel and leave me," she said, her face taking
on an expression of relentless cruelty, "you must do so at once."

He turned.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean--I cannot bear suspense. If, for any reason, you are going
to--to go--please go now."

He was honestly puzzled, for she looked at him as if he had been an
enemy.

"My dear--my beloved--what do you mean?" His voice was grieved and
gentle. "Surely you can see that----" he broke off into French, "that the
situation is not simple? That we love we cannot help--nor would we, by
God!--but in an honest man and an honest woman----"

"Come along, you two," cried Mrs. Newlyn, "dinner is announced. M.
Joyselle, go and find Lady Sophy, and you, Brigit, come and be found by
your man--I forget who he is----"

"Eugene Struther," she answered quietly, "I am glad, too."

Struther was one of the best of the young men to be met at the Newlyns,
and he and she always got on fairly well. Their table was squeezed
rather tightly into a little balcony looking over the diminutive garden
that, although she never went into it, or knew one of its flowers from
another, was one of the several joys of the Cassowary's heart. So few
people have gardens in London.

Lady Sophy Browne, an ethereal-looking woman, with a consciously wan
smile and a grey chiffon frock, that looked as if it would have had to
be unpinned and unwound, rather than taken off, when bed-time came, put
her elbows on the table and clasped her hands under her chin.

"Do you know Rodin's Portrait d'un Inconnu?" she asked Joyselle.

"No, madame."

"But you know Rodin?"

"I have met him."

Ecstatic was her smile.

"I knew it. And unconsciously you were his model for the Inconnu. But it
is you, M. Joyselle! Do not deny it, for I know."

Joyselle took an olive.

"I do not deny it, Lady Sophy. But I know nothing of it. If you are
right I am--much flattered."

Brigit was amused, for she saw that the Spectre, as her friends called
the grey-draped peeress, had anticipated excitement and curiosity on
Joyselle's part.

There was music somewhere in the distance, and