When Traill came back early from the Temple the next evening and told Sally that he was dining with his sister at the house in Sloane Street, she took the announcement in silence, eyes lifting to his in a steady question, her heart wearily adding one more figure to the column of events which she had already compiled against her hopes of happiness.

As yet, openly, she dared question nothing. She knew too well the outlook of his mind where freedom of his own action was concerned.

Now she was beginning to realize the full extent, the full impotence of her position as his mistress. Had she been legally his wife, he had given her no cause to complain, created no right for her criticism.

As his mistress, she was still less justified in questioning his actions and to do so would, she knew to a certainty, bring down his wrath, more surely than ever draw to a close their relationship, the termination of which was shadowing itself upon the surface of her suspicion.

"Is your sister getting on better with her husband?" she asked.

"Somewhat, I think. I don't really know--it's difficult to say. I haven't seen him yet. She doesn't want me to speak to him about it.

She thinks it might only make things worse. Says I've got a blunt way that 'ud ruffle what little patience he's got."

Sally looked directly, deeply into his eyes.

"You really think it is serious?" she said. "I suppose it wouldn't have been possible for her to have imagined it?"

"Imagined it? No! Why? What should she have imagined it for? We Traills haven't got an ounce of imagination between us. How could she imagine it? What good would it do her? A woman doesn't hesitate and stumble and drag a thing out of her with tears in her eyes, hating to talk about it, when the whole business is only a tissue of her imagination. Besides, what would she gain by it?"

"Your sympathy," Sally replied.

Traill walked into his bedroom with a laugh.

"A deuced lot she really cares about my sympathy," he exclaimed. "I a.s.sure you Dolly's not a sentimentalist. She only wants to cling to her rung of the ladder, that's all."

That was all, and Sally knew it; but she could say no more. She had tried to plant the seed of suspicion in his mind. She had failed.

The ambitions which were a motive to all his sister's actions, he could see well enough; but to the means she used in gratifying them, he was blind. And Sally, though she knew nothing, dared not attempt the opening of his eyes.

"Are you going to change now?" she asked.

He mumbled an affirmative. She realized, sensitively, that his mind was pre-occupied with other things and, quietly, she crept out of the room, upstairs to the other floor where she stood, looking out of the window, finding her eyes watching the women who were wheeling round the corner of the Circus into Piccadilly, with skirts tight gripped about them, little reticule bags swinging with their ungainly walk, heads alert to follow any direction that their eyes might prompt them.

When Traill looked into his sitting-room a few moments later, looked through the opening front of a white shirt which he was in the process of dragging over his head, she had gone.

"What are you going to do with yourself this evening, Sally?" he asked, before his head was free of the folds of the stiff, starched linen.

No answer was given him. Then, when he found he was alone, he cursed volubly at the intractable shirt. The words steadied on his lips as a knock fell on the door. He marched across the room as he was, holding up his garments with one hand and flung it open--one of his characteristic actions--he cared little how he appeared or whom his appearance affected.

"You? Come in!" he said.

A tall, well-featured man, well-dressed, well-groomed, walked in through the open door. With a certain amount of care--customary enough in him to hide the obvious--he laid his silk hat, brim upwards, upon the table, pulled off his gloves, threw them carelessly into it, and turned round.

"You're going out?" he said.

"Yes."

"Can't come and have dinner with me?"

"No, couldn't."

"Taking the little lady out, I suppose?"

"No, she's upstairs."

The man's eyes pa.s.sed across Traill's face as they wandered to the portrait of James Brownrigg over the mantelpiece.

"Well, I'm at a loose end," he said. He took a gold cigarette-case from his pocket and extracted a cigarette. Traill continued his gymnastics with the shirt, forcing studs through obdurate holes, fastening links and muttering under his breath.

"I thought we might have dined together and taken the little lady to a music hall, like we did before. How long ago was that?"

Traill tramped into the other room and came out, struggling with a collar.

"Oh, last September, wasn't it?"

"Something like that, getting on for a year. How is she?"

"Oh, first rate. Will you have a drink?"

"No, thanks, old man. Where are you going to?"

"I'm dining with my sister. Going to some theatre, I believe."

"Ah, I saw your sister the other day, about a couple of weeks ago."

He seated himself, hitching his trousers above the uppers of his boots. "Prince's, I think it was. Yes, she was skating with that Miss Standish-Roe."

"Yes, she's coming with my sister and me this evening."

"Is she?" Again his eye lifted to Traill's face. "d.a.m.ned pretty girl."

Traill did not reply. Had he made some casual answer in the affirmative, the man's eyes might not have followed him as he walked back into his bedroom; the humorous twist of the man's lips might not have been visible. There would have been no thought to create it.

"What theatre are you going to?" he asked unconcernedly.

Traill mentioned the name, and began the singing of a hymn tune with impossible crescendos and various deviations from the melody.

"'Can a woman's tender care Cease toward the child she bare?

Yes, she may forgetful be ...'"

"I say!" he called out with unceremonious interruption to himself.

"What?"

"You say you've got a loose end?"

"Yes, there's Time got to be killed somehow."

"Well, take Sally out to dinner."

"What, the little lady?"

"Yes, she'll be lonely by herself. I gave her such d.a.m.ned short notice about this engagement of mine that she didn't have time to send for that friend of hers--that Miss Hallard. Would you mind doing that?

Don't hesitate to say if you would."