"Not as yet," the Doctor answered.

Almost before the words were out of his mouth, he saw Mrs. Chepstow at
some distance from them, coming in at the door. She came in alone. He
looked to see her escort, but, to his surprise, she was not followed by
any one. Holding herself very erect, and not glancing to the right or
left, she walked down the room escorted by the _maître d'hôtel_, passed
close to Armine and the Doctor, went to a small table set in the angle
of a screen not far off, and sat down with her profile turned towards
them. She said a few words to the _maître d'hôtel_. He spoke to a
waiter, then hurried away. Mrs. Chepstow sat very still in her chair,
looking down. She had laid a lace fan beside the knives and glasses that
shone in the electric light. Her right hand rested lightly on it. She
was dressed in black, and wore white gloves, and a diamond comb in her
fair, dyed hair. Her strange, colourless complexion looked
extra-ordinarily delicate and pure from where the two friends were
sitting. There was something pathetic in its whiteness, and in the quiet
attitude of this woman who sat quite alone in the midst of the gay
crowd. Many people stared at her, whispered about her, were obviously
surprised at her solitude; but she seemed quite unconscious that she was
being noticed. And there was a curious simplicity in her
unconsciousness, and in her attitude, which made her seem almost girlish
from a little distance.

"There's Mrs. Chepstow," said a man at the next table to Armine's,
bending over to his companion, a stout and florid specimen from the
City. "And absolutely alone, by Jove!"

"Couldn't get even a kid from Sandhurst to-night, I s'pose," returned
the other. "I wonder she comes in at all if she can't scrape up an