He knew now why she had been alone at her table, why she had advertised
her ill success in the life she had chosen, her present abandonment by
men. This had been done to strike at Armine's peculiar temperament. It
was a very clever stroke.

But it was a burning of her boats.

Meyer Isaacson frowned in the night.

A woman like Mrs. Chepstow does not burn her boats for nothing. How much
did she expect to gain by that sacrifice of improper pride, a pride
almost dearer than life to a woman of her type? The _quid pro quo_--what
was it to be?

He feared for Nigel, as he lay awake while the night drew on towards
dawn.




VI


Mrs. Chepstow's sitting-room at the Savoy was decorated with pink and
green in pale hues which suited well her present scheme of colour. In it
there was a little rosewood piano. Upon that piano's music-desk, on the
following day, stood a copy of Elgar's "Dream of Gerontius," open at the
following words: