?"

"No, not all day, but he's pretty tired by the time he gets home."

"Why didn't he come to the Savoy that night?" she asked.

He wished she would not talk about Gilbert. He could not tell her the
real reason why Gilbert had not kept his promise to join the
supper-party and he was a poor hand at inventing convincing lies.

"There was some trouble at his office, I think," he said, "and he
couldn't get away until too late!..."

"He didn't write or come to see me!" she protested.

It was probable that Gilbert forgot his duty in the excitement of
hearing that his play was to be produced....

"I suppose so," she said.

She talked to him about his books and about Ireland. She had been to
Dublin once and had gone to the Viceregal Lodge ... Lady Dundrum had
taken her to some function there ... and she was eager for the
tittle-tattle of the Court. Was it true that Lord Kelpie was indifferent
to his lady?... Henry knew very little of the Dublin gossip. "I haven't
been there since I left Trinity," he said, in explanation, "and the only
people who write to me don't take any interest in Court functions!"

He rose to go, but she asked him to stay to tea with her, and so he
remained.

"I don't suppose any one will call," she said, "but in case ..."

She told a servant that she was "not at home" to any one, and Henry,
wondering why she had done so, felt vaguely flattered and as vaguely
nervous. Her beauty filled him with desire and apprehension and left him
half eager, half afraid to be alone with her. He understood Gilbert's
fear that if he yielded to Cecily, she would destroy him. There was
something in this woman that overpowered the senses, that made a man as
will-less as a log, and left him in the end, spent, exhausted,
incapable. He saw the danger that had frightened Gilbert, but he could
not make up his mind to run away from it. There was something so
exquisitely sensual in her look as she lay on the couch, looking at him
and chattering in the Lensley style, that he felt inclined to yield
himself to her, even if in yielding he should lose everything.

"Of course," he said to himself, "this is all imagination. She doesn't
want me at all ... she wants Gilbert!"

She asked for another cigarette, and he took one and placed it in her
lips and lit it for her, and again his fingers touched hers, and again
he trembled with unaccountable emotion. As he bent over her, holding the
match to the cigarette, he felt the blood