But Marguerite was nervous and agitated. Strive how she might, she
could not throw off that foreboding of something evil to come, which had
assailed her from the first moment when she met Chauvelin face to face.

That unaccountable feeling of unreality was still upon her, that sense that
she, and the woman Candeille, Percy and even His Royal Highness were,
for the time being, the actors in a play written and stage-managed by
Chauvelin. The ex-ambassador's humility, his offers of friendship, his
quietude under Sir Percy's good-humoured banter, everything was a
sham. Marguerite knew it; her womanly instinct, her passionate love, all
cried out to her in warning: but there was that in her husband's nature
which rendered her powerless in the face of such dangers, as, she felt
sure, were now threatening him.

Just before her guests had begun to assemble, she had been alone with
him for a few minutes. She had entered the room in which he sat,
looking radiantly beautiful in a shimmering gown of white and silver, with
diamonds in her golden hair and round her exquisite neck.

Moments like this, when she was alone with him, were the joy of her life.
Then and then only did she see him as he really was, with that wistful
tenderness in his deep-set eyes, that occasional flash of passion from
beneath the lazily-drooping lids. For a few minutes--seconds, mayhap--
the spirit of the reckless adventurer was laid to rest, relegated into the
furthermost background of this senses by the powerful emotions of the
lover.

Then he would seize her in his arms, and hold her to him, with a strange
longing to tear from out his heart all other thoughts, feelings and passions