you ever thought of giving up this doping?"
he asked. "Have you ever realized that with increasing tolerance the
quantities must increase as well, and that a day is sure to come when--"

Rita repressed a nervous shudder.

"You are trying to frighten me," she replied. "You have tried before; I
don't know why. But it's no good, Lucy. You know I cannot give it up."

"You can try."

"I don't want to try!" she cried irritably. "It will be time enough when
Monte is back again, and we can really 'live.' This wretched existence,
with everything restricted and rationed, and all one's friends in
Flanders or Mesopotamia or somewhere, drives me mad! I tell you I should
die, Lucy, if I tried to do without it now."

The hollow presence of reform contemplated in a hazy future did not
deceive Sir Lucien. He suppressed a sigh, and changed the topic of
conversation.

CHAPTER XXI. THE CIGARETTES FROM BUENOS AYRES

Sir Lucien's intervention proved successful. Kazmah's charges became
more modest, and Rita no longer found it necessary to deprive herself of
hats and dresses in order to obtain drugs. But, nevertheless, these were
not the halcyon days of old. She was now surrounded by spies. It was
necessary to resort to all kinds of subterfuge in order to cover her
expenditures at the establishment in old Bond Street. Her husband never
questioned her outlay, but on the other hand it was expedient to be
armed against the possibility of his doing so, and Rita's debts were
accumulating formidably.

Then there was Margaret Halley to consider. Rita had never hitherto
given her confidence to anyone who was not addicted to the same
practices as herself, and she frequently experienced embarrassment
beneath the grave scrutiny of Margaret's watchful eyes. In another this
attitude of gentle disapproval would have been irritating, but Rita
loved and admired Margaret, and suffered accordingly.

As for Sir Lucien, she had ceased to understand him. An impalpable
barrier seemed to have arisen between them. The inner man had became
inaccessible. Her mind was not subtle enough to grasp the real
explanation of this change in her old lover. Being based upon wrong
premises, her inferences were necessarily wide of the truth, and she
believed that Sir Lucien was jealous of Margaret's cousin, Quentin Gray.

Gray met Rita at Margaret Halley's flat shortly after he had returned
home from service in the East, and he immediately conceived a violent
infatu