* *

That day went by slowly, slowly, with feet of lead. Whether she would
endure to its end without some hysterical outburst of temper Mrs. Armine
did not know. She seemed to herself to be clinging frantically to the
last fragments of her self-control. For so long she had acted a part,
that it would be tragic to break down feebly, contemptibly, now close to
the end of the drama.

This night must see its end. For her powers were exhausted. She meant to
tell Baroudi so. He must take her away now, or let her join him
somewhere. But in any case she must get away from her life with Nigel.
She could no longer play the devoted wife, safe at last, after many
trials, in the arms of respectability. It was only by making a cruel
effort that she was able to get through the day without rousing
suspicion in Nigel. And to-day he was curiously observant of her. His
eyes seemed to be always upon her, watching her with a look she could
not quite understand. He never left her for a moment, and sometimes she
had a strange sensation that, like herself, he was on the verge
of--what--some self-revelation? Some confession? Some perhaps emotional
laying bare of his heart? She did not know. But she did know that he was
not in a normal state. And once or twice she wondered what had been the
exact truth of the quarrel with Isaacson. But, at any rate, it had not
been the truth in which she was concerned. And she was too frightfully
intent upon herself to-day to be very curious, even about Isaacson's
relations with her husband.

He was gone, and gone without having tried to destroy her. That was
enough. She would not bother about small things to-day.

At last the evening approached along the marvellous ways of gold. As she
saw the sky beginning to change Mrs. Armine's fever of excitement and
impatience increased. Now that the moment of her meeting with Baroudi
was so near she felt as if she could not bear even another second's
delay. How she was going to escape from her husband she did not know.
But she did not worry about that. She could always manage Nigel somehow,
and she would not fail for the first time to-night.

When the moment came it would find her ready. Of that she was sure.

She made up her face elaborately that evening, put a delicate flush upon
her cheeks, darkened her eyebrows more than usual, made her lips very
red. She took infinite pains to give to her face an appearance of youth.
Her eyes burned out of the paint