"Nor am I now," he answered. "I have spoken too many truths to-night.

Why do women take to lies and deceit and trickery as naturally as a duck to water?"

"You are not alluding, I hope, to Miss Pellissier?" Ennison said stiffly.

"Why not? Isn't the whole thing a lie? Isn't her reputation, this husband of hers, the 'Alcide' business, isn't it all a cursed juggle?

She hasn't the right to do it. I----"

He stopped short. He had the air of a man who has said too much.

Ennison was deeply interested.

"I should like to understand you," he said. "I knew Miss Pellissier in Paris at the 'Amba.s.sador's,' and I know her now, but I am convinced that there is some mystery in connexion with her change of life. She is curiously altered in many ways. Is there any truth, do you suppose, in this rumoured marriage?"

"I know nothing," Courtlaw answered hurriedly. "Ask me nothing. I will not talk to you about Miss Pellissier or her affairs."

"You are not yourself to-night, Courtlaw," Ennison said. "Come to my rooms and have a drink."

Courtlaw refused brusquely, almost rudely.

"I am off to-night," he said. "I am going to America. I have work there. I ought to have gone long ago. Will you answer me a question first?"

"If I can," Ennison said.

"What were you doing outside Miss Pellissier's flat to-night? You were looking at her windows. Why? What is she to you?"

"I was there by accident," Ennison answered. "Miss Pellissier is nothing to me except a young lady for whom I have the most profound and respectful admiration."

Courtlaw laid his hand upon Ennison's shoulder. They were at the corner of Pall Mall now, and had come to a standstill.

"Take my advice," he said hoa.r.s.ely. "Call it warning, if you like.

Admire her as much as you choose--at a distance. No more. Look at me.

You knew me in Paris. David Courtlaw. Well-balanced, sane, wasn't I?

You never heard anyone call me a madman? I'm pretty near being one now, and it's her fault. I've loved her for two years, I love her now.

And I'm off to America, and if my steamer goes to the bottom of the Atlantic I'll thank the Lord for it."

He strode away and vanished in the gathering fog. Ennison stood still for a moment, swinging his latchkey upon his finger. Then he turned round and gazed thoughtfully at the particular spot in the fog where Courtlaw had disappeared.

"I'm d----d if I understand this," he said thoughtfully. "I never saw Courtlaw with her--never heard her speak of him. He was going to tell me something--and he shut up. I wonder what it was."

_Chapter XVIII_

ANNABEL AND "ALCIDE"

Lady Ferringhall lifted her eyes to the newcomer, and the greeting in them was obviously meant for him alone. She continued to fan herself.

"You are late," she murmured.

"My chief," he said, "took it into his head to have an impromptu dinner party. He brought home a few waverers to talk to them where they had no chance of getting away."

She nodded.

"I am bored," she said abruptly. "This is a very foolish sort of entertainment. And, as usual," she continued, a little bitterly, "I seem to have been sent along with the dullest and least edifying of Mrs. Montressor's guests."

Ennison glanced at the other people in the box and smiled.

"I got your note just in time," he remarked. "I knew of course that you were at the Montressor's, but I had no idea that it was a music hall party afterwards. Are you all here?"

"Five boxes full," she answered. "Some of them seem to be having an awfully good time too. Did you see Lord Delafield and Miss Anderson?

They packed me in with Colonel Anson and Mrs. Hitchings, who seem to be absolutely engrossed in one another, and a boy of about seventeen, who no sooner got here than he discovered that he wanted to see a man in the promenade and disappeared."

Ennison at once seated himself.

"I feel justified then," he said, "in annexing his chair. I expect you had been snubbing him terribly."

"Well, he was presumptuous," Annabel remarked, "and he wasn't nice about it. I wonder how it is," she added, "that boys always make love so impertinently."

Ennison laughed softly.

"I wonder," he said, "how you would like to be made love to--boldly or timorously or sentimentally."

"Are you master of all three methods?" she asked, stopping her fanning for a moment to look at him.

"Indeed, no," he answered. "Mine is a primitive and unstudied manner.

It needs cultivating, I think."

His fingers touched hers for a moment under the ledge of the box.

"That sounds so uncouth," she murmured. "I detest amateurs."

"I will buy books and a lay figure," he declared, "to practise upon.

Or shall I ask Colonel Anson for a few hints?"

"For Heaven's sake no," she declared. "I would rather put up with your own efforts, however clumsy. Love-making at first hand is dull enough.

At second hand it would be unendurable."

He leaned towards her.

"Is that a challenge?"

She shrugged her shoulders, all ablaze with jewels.

"Why not? It might amuse me."

Somewhat irrelevantly he glanced at the next few boxes where the rest of Mrs. Montressor's guests were.

"Is your husband here to-night?" he asked.