"Idiot!" Mrs. Chepstow muttered.

She knew the value of a last impression.

She went out on to her balcony and looked down to the Embankment, idly
watching the traffic, the people walking by.

Although she did not know it, Nigel was among them. He was strolling by
the river. He was looking at the sunset. And he was thinking of the poet
Browning, and of the woman whom love took from the shrouded chamber and
set on the mountain peaks.




VII


Although Nigel Armine was an enthusiast, and what many people called an
"original," he was also a man of the world. He knew the trend of the
world's opinion, he realized clearly how the world regarded any actions
that were not worldly. The fact that often he did not care did not mean
that he did not know. He was no ignorant citizen, and in his
acquaintance with Mrs. Chepstow his worldly knowledge did not forsake
him. Clearly he understood how the average London man--the man he met at
his clubs, at Ranelagh, at Hurlingham--would sum up any friendship
between Mrs. Chepstow and himself.

"Mrs. Chepstow's hooked poor old Armine!"