The last word was hardly breathed.

"Oh, you are--and friends are precious. If you are alone--really--and don't mind a dull person----"

Even as she spoke he had hailed a taxi, and she was seated in it at his side before she well knew that she had consented.

"This is the one advantage of your being married--I can take you about," said the young man, with an air of quiet confidence. "Gaunt seemed anxious about you. He said you had been unwell, and would, I am sure, be grateful to me for looking after you, and preventing your dining on a poached egg, which is what I know to have been your immoral intention."

She laughed. "Tell him to stop a moment at Margaret Street. I must tell my maid not to keep the poached egg hot," she replied.

This was done, and he took her to Ciliani's, the most charming restaurant in London. There was no band to drown talk, the tables were arranged so that parties did not intrude upon each other. They found places near a window, and as Virgie seated herself she thought of that awful lunch with her husband at the Savoy Restaurant. The memory made her wince. She remembered her panic terror, her dread of what was to come, her timid attempts to seem at ease. Little had she known what really awaited her.

She resigned herself now to Gerald's care with a sudden beautiful sensation of relief. He was an old friend. In fact, the Rosenbergs were practically the only people she knew who belonged to the life at Lissendean as well as to more recent times. Perhaps Gerald realised how precious an a.s.set such a link was, for he began to talk to her of Lissendean, and of those happy days when they had ridden and golfed together, had roamed the country with lunch in their pockets, and acted charades in the old hall.

All through the charm of such talk Virginia's inner self, the sentinel conscience which ruled her, was helping her to gird on her armour. She was keenly aware that Gerald's first mention of her husband had caught her unprepared, also that Gerald had seen and interpreted her confusion.

It was not until coffee had been served, and he was lighting his cigarette that the moment came. He leaned forward and spoke, composedly, but with a weight which made itself felt.

"I left you--unavoidably--at my father's command, one lovely evening in June. When we parted, there were in my heart feelings which I can't but believe you must have seen and interpreted. A fortnight later I learned that you were about to be married. Has it occurred to you to wonder whether I suffered?"

Virginia was drawing her gloves from her little beaded bag, and daintily pulling out the fingers. "But why should I suppose that you would be suffering?" she demanded quietly.

He hesitated. "Are you being quite straightforward with me, Virgie?"

Again she countered with a question. "Is there any obligation for me to be quite straightforward with you, Mr. Rosenberg? Complete straightforwardness is a large demand."

He grew nettled. His elbow rested on the table, his handsome eyes were full upon her. "Honestly, do you think you treated me fairly?" he wished to know.

"Certainly. I don't see quite what you mean," was her steady reply.

"Then--then you really did not know that I was in love with you?"

"I did not. Of course not."

"Don't try to blind me," he went on urgently, his voice a little unsteady. "I am better informed than you think. I know that you had never seen Gaunt until that day at Hertford House. You went thence, and without a word, or a sign, you engaged yourself to marry a man who was a total stranger. Do you suppose I do not guess that you were forced into that?"

"If you guess so, your guess is quite wrong. I had heard of Mr. Gaunt all my life. I had a romantic idea of him--girls do, you know. I was told, by mother, various things about him, and I knew he was unhappy and lonely. We looked at one another--in the Gallery--that day----"

Her voice tailed off, and she seemed absorbed in the diligent pushing down of the soft kid upon her fingers.

Gerald was baffled. The same idea crossed his mind which had gripped her mother's fancy. It had been then a case of mutual love at first sight, one of those strange, inexplicable attractions that seem like magnetism. He looked at the wedding-ring and the other beautiful rings upon the little hand moving so dexterously. He thought how zealously a middle-aged, unattractive man would strive to secure the affection of this wonderful creature. Could it really be that she was contented with her lot? After all, had she made her calculations? Had she realised that his own people would make difficulties, that she and he would be none too well off at first if they married? Had she deliberately chosen the richer man, as his father had insinuated?...

He recalled her husband's words, spoken only two days previously. "My wife's beauty is the least part of her charm. She is pure gold throughout." Was that true, or was Gaunt successfully hoodwinked? So deft was Virginia's parry that he could not be sure.

When first they met that evening, he had had no plan at all; he was merely filled with an aching desire to behold her face. Now it dawned upon him that, if she were the calculating, self-seeking person whom he sometimes supposed her, she could not suffer from being in his society, and there was no reason why he should not see a good deal of her.

"Love at first sight--most interesting!" was what he said aloud; and a long interval elapsed before he spoke at all.

She a.s.sented to his definition, with the least little ghost of a smile.

"How long are you likely to be in town?" he asked abruptly.

"I think I shall stay until they can take Pansy to the sea," she replied. "Dr. Danby says that in about ten days she can be moved on a water-bed in a motor-car to Cliftonville. Osbert says she is to have just what the doctor orders, so I shall arrange for her to go that way.

It is, as you may suppose, very difficult for me to be so long away from Omberleigh, but my husband is very good and patient. He knows it was a matter of life and death."

"Well, as long as you are in town, I shall make it my business to see that you have some fresh air every day," he announced. "May I bring a motor to-morrow round to the Home, and take you and Mrs. Mynors to dine somewhere a little way out of town? It is still light until past eight o'clock, and in an hour or so we could get to Essendon, or Chenies, or one of those pretty little places--no need to stew in London these deadly August days."

Her eye lit up, and she began to speak impatiently, then checked herself.

"Now, say just what you were going to say."

She laughed. "I was going to be barefaced enough to ask you to take Tony as well. He has been in camp, with his O.T.C., but he comes to London to-morrow, and I want him to have a good time."

"By all means. Couldn't you get away half an hour sooner?"

She shook her head. "I must stay until they turn me out; Pansy would fret if I did not. But I will be as punctual as I can, and tell mother and Tony to come round to Queen Anne Street."

"On no account! I shall fetch them from Margaret Street on my way to you."

"You are very kind and thoughtful," she responded joyfully. "I do feel that a motor run would do me good after all those hours in the sick room."

For the first few days Virginia said nothing of her meeting with Gerald in her letters to Gaunt. This was not because she wished to hide them, but because she habitually mentioned only such points as seemed essential--Pansy's progress and her own expenditure. Tony's expenses, her mother's club dinners and theatres, came out of her own private allowance. It was wonderful how far a pound could be made to go in museums and picture palaces for Tony's benefit. After a few days, however, she thought it better to mention what was going on, lest her husband should think there might be something clandestine about it. She wrote accordingly, in answer to his demand for an account of her own health:

_I have been feeling very much better lately, for Mr. Rosenberg--whom I met last week in the street, and who told me he had been to Perley Hatch, and had seen you--has been taking mother and me for drives in the evening. His people are out of town, and he has the car to himself.

We have been to Windsor and Burnham Beeches, to Virginia Water, and all sorts of places. The air does me a great deal of good. I am really quite well now._

Gaunt read it grimly. He told himself that he might have expected it.

Was it likely that Rosenberg would leave her alone, having learned that she was in London without him?

The test was growing more acute, the shadowy tie, which bound her to him, more attenuated. She would never come back. He went into the little sitting-room, wherein the decorators were at work, and wondered at his own folly. He was carrying that folly to an absurd pitch. He was having a copy executed of the statue of Love from the Wallace collection. It was to stand upon a column in the charming semicircular bay window, looking out upon the prim terrace garden.

Should he write now--write and offer her her release?

He sneered at himself for having ascertained the limits of his own penitence. Although he was ready to swear that he would do anything for her happiness, he could not do that. Having once seen her, at his table, on the terrace, in the hall, having heard her voice in the stark silence of his desolate house, the craving to have her back was, he had to confess, even greater than the craving for her content. Besides, he argued, she had been willing once. She had accepted her destiny, had meant to do her duty, spoken of being bound by her vows. When she found that there was love--even adoration--to be lavished upon her, would she not become reconciled?

Ah! the time for that had gone by. Rosenberg had now stepped into the picture. She knew nothing of his own change of heart. To her he was a gloomy and cruel tyrant. Had he used his chance when wonderfully he had obtained it--had he not horrified her at the outset by his unmanly, despicable behaviour--what might not have been possible?

Thoughts such as these were his torment day and night; and his sleep went from him.

Mrs. Mynors and Gerald Rosenberg were strolling side by side upon the North Terrace of Windsor Castle. It was growing late, and they were expecting to be ejected by officials shortly; but Virginia and Tony had gone off together to look at Eton College, and to sigh over the deplorable fact that Tony would never occupy his dead father's place in Brooke's House.

"I found it out accidentally," Mrs. Mynors was saying, "when she first came to town. She was in a terrible state of distress about Pansy, and would not go away from the nursing home when night came. They were very kind, and let her lie on a sofa in a sitting-room, and I was in an arm-chair. She dropped off to sleep a dozen times, I should think, and each time woke in a kind of nightmare, crying out to him that he might torture her as he liked, but she was going to Pansy; he might cut her to pieces when she got back."

"Good G.o.d!" said Gerald.