"Olga is punished," he said. "She is ruined."

"Her ruin may be repaired."

Sergius smiled quietly.

"You think so?"

"Yes. Tell me, Sergius"--Anthony spoke with a strong earnestness, a strong excitement that he strove to conceal and hold in check--"you loved her?"

"Yes, I loved her--certainly."

"You will always love her?"

"Since I'm not changeable, I daresay I shall."

Anthony's thin, eager face brightened. A glow of warmth burned in his eyes and on his cheeks.

"Then you would wish her ruin repaired."

"Should I?"

"If you love her, you must."

"How could it be repaired?"

"By her marriage with--Vernon."

Anthony's strong voice quivered before he p.r.o.nounced the last word, and his eyes were alight with fervent anxiety. He was looking at Sergius like a man on the watch for a tremendous outbreak of emotion. The champagne he had drunk--a new experience for him since he had taken orders--put a sort of wild finishing touch to the intensity of the feelings, under the impulse of which he had forced himself upon Sergius to-night. He supposed that his inward excitement must be more than matched by the so different inward excitement of his friend. But he--who thought he understood!--had no true conception of the region of cold, frosty fury in which Sergius was living, like a being apart from all other men, ostracised by the immensity and peculiarity of his own power of emotion. Therefore he was astonished when Sergius, with undiminished quietude, replied:

"Oh, with Vernon, that charming man of fashion, whose very soul, they say, always wears lavender gloves? You think that would be a good thing?"

"Good! I don't say that. I say--as the world is now--the only thing. He is the author of her fall. He should be her husband."

"And I?"

Anthony stretched out his hand to grasp his friend's hand, but Sergius suddenly took up his champagne gla.s.s, and avoided the demonstration of sympathy.

"You can be nothing to her now, Serge," Anthony said, and his voice quivered with sympathy.

"You think so? I might be."

"What?"

"Oh, not her husband, not her lover, not her friend."

"What then?"

Sergius avoided answering.

"You would have her settle down with Vernon in Phillimore Place?" he said. "Play the wife to his n.o.ble husband? Well, I know there's been some idea of that, as I told you yesterday."

The clock chimed ten. Although Sergius seemed so calm, so self-possessed, Anthony observed that now he paid no heed to the little, devilish note of time. This new subject of conversation had been Anthony's weapon. Desperately he had used it, and not, it seemed, altogether in vain.

"Yes; as you told me yesterday."

"And it seems good to you?"

"It seems to me the only thing possible now."

"There are generally more possibilities than one in any given event, I fancy."

Again Anthony was surprised at the words of Sergius, who seemed to grow calmer as he grew more excited, who seemed, to-night, strangely powerful, not simply in temper, but even in intellect.

"For a woman there is sometimes only one possibility if she is to be saved from ignominy, Serge."

"So you think that Olga Mayne must become the wife of Vernon, who is a--"

"Coward. Yes."

At the word coward, Sergius seemed startled out of his hard calm. He looked swiftly and searchingly at Anthony.

"Why do you say coward?" he asked sharply. "I was not going to use that word."

Anthony was obviously disconcerted.

"It came to me," he said hurriedly.

"Why?"

"Any man that brings a girl to the dust is a coward."

"Ah--that's not what you meant," Sergius said.

Anthony stole a glance at the clock. The hand crawled slowly over the quarter of an hour past ten.

"No, it was not," he said slowly.

IV

Sergius got up from his chair and stood by the fire. He was obviously becoming engrossed by the conversation. Anthony could at least notice this with thankfulness.

"Anthony, I see you've got a fresh knowledge of Vernon since I was with you yesterday," Sergius continued; "some new knowledge of his nature."

"Perhaps I have."

"How did you get it?"

"Does that matter?"