"I suppose I have just dropped into it," she remarked. "Tell me what you have decided to do, Louise?"

"Why should I do anything at all?"

"You know very well," Sophy insisted, "that you have encouraged John Strangewey shamefully. You have persuaded him to live up here, to make new friends, and to start an entirely new mode of life, just in the hope that some day you will marry him."

"Have I?" Louise asked. "Then I suppose I must keep my word--some day!"

Sophy drew her chair a little nearer to her friend's. She pa.s.sed her arm around Louise's waist; their heads almost touched.

"Dear Louise," she whispered, "please tell me!"

Louise was silent. Her hesitation became momentous. Her eyes seemed to be looking through the walls. Sophy watched her breathlessly.

"You ought to make up your mind," she went on. "You see, it isn't as if there was no one else. There is the prince."

Sophy felt the fingers that she was clasping grow a little colder.

"Yes," Louise repeated, "there is the prince. Sophy, I feel that I am drifting into an impossible position. Every day is bringing me nearer to it."

"I want to tell you this, Louise," Sophy said firmly. "John is getting to know a great many people, and you know how men talk at the clubs.

Aren't you sometimes afraid that he will hear things and misunderstand?"

"I am expecting it every day," Louise admitted.

"Then why don't you end it?"

"Which way?"

There was a silence between the two women. The m.u.f.fled street noises from outside became the background to a stillness which grew every moment more oppressive. Louise returned to her former att.i.tude. She looked steadfastly before her, her face supported by her hands.

Sophy grew paler and paler as the minutes pa.s.sed. There was something strange and almost beautiful in Louise's face, something which had come to her lately, and which shone from her eyes only at rare intervals.

"You care for him, I believe!" Sophy cried at last. "You care for him!"

Louise did not move.

"Why not?" she whispered.

"You, Louise!" Sophy gasped. "You, the great artist! Why, think of the men who have tried to make you care--poets, musicians--so many of them, so many famous men! It can't be true. John Strangewey is so far apart.

He doesn't belong to your world."

Louise leaned over and stroked her little friend's hair.

"Child," she said, "that's all very true. I have had it ringing in my brain for longer than you would believe. But now tell me something. No, look at me--don't be ashamed. Are you in love with John yourself?"

Sophy never hesitated.

"From the very first moment I saw him," she confessed. "Don't let that bother you, dear. He would never look at me except as a little pal. I never expected anything from him--anything serious, of course--never dared to hope for it. I have thrown myself at his head in the most shameless manner. It is all no good. I never met any one like him before. Louise, do you know that he is good--really good?"

"I believe he is," Louise murmured. "That is what makes it so wonderful."

"It's all incomprehensible," Sophy declared wearily.

There was a ring at the front door. Louise, from her place, could see the long, gray bonnet of John's car. Almost before she could speak, he was announced.

"It's an atrocious time to come, I know--" he began apologetically.

"You're in time for some coffee, anyhow," Sophy told him cheerfully.

"And I know Louise is glad to see you, because if you hadn't come I was going to make her go through some accounts."

"You know I am always glad to see you," Louise murmured, pointing to a chair. "Sophy and I have been having a most interesting discussion, but we have come to a _cul-de-sac_."

"I really came," John explained, "to ask if you cared to come and see a collection of pictures. There's an Italian--a Futurist, of course--just unpacked his little lot and set them up over a curiosity-shop in Clifford Street. He is sending out cards for next week, but I could take you to-day--that is, if you would care about it. We can go somewhere for some tea afterward."

Louise made a little grimace.

"What bad luck!" she exclaimed.

She stopped short. She felt that by her hesitation she had, in a sense, committed herself.

"I have promised to go and have tea with the prince at Seyre House," she said. "It is an engagement we made last week."

John set down his empty coffee-cup with a clatter. An inexplicable but dominating fury seemed to have suddenly a.s.sailed him. He took out a cigarette and tried to light it. Sophy, after watching him for a moment in astonishment, slipped out of the room. Louise came over to his side.

"Are you really so much disappointed?" she asked. "I am so sorry. If I had known that you were coming for me, I would have kept myself free."

"It isn't that exactly," John answered. "It's something I can't altogether explain. If you don't mind, I think I will be going. There is something I must put right."

He left without another word. She watched him step into his new motor-car and drive away a little recklessly, considering the crowded state of the streets. He drew up, a few minutes later, outside the club in Pall Mall, where, as it chanced, he had lunched that day with the Prince of Seyre.

He found the prince still sitting in the smoking room, reading a review, over the top of which he glanced up as John approached, and nodded nonchalantly.

"Back again?" he murmured.

"I came back to have a word with you, prince."

The prince laid down the review, keeping his finger in the place.

"Delighted!"

"Not long ago," John went on, "in this room, some one--I think it was Major Charters--asked you what you were doing this afternoon. You replied that you were engaged. There were several others present, and they began to chaff you. Perhaps I joined in--I don't remember. I think that it was Major Charters who asked you, to use his own words, whether your appointment was with a lady. You replied in the affirmative. There was a little volley of chaff. You listened without contradiction to many references concerning the nature of your afternoon's amus.e.m.e.nt."

The prince nodded slightly. His face remained quite expressionless.

"As a matter of fact," John concluded, "I have discovered by the purest accident that Miss Maurel is to be your guest this afternoon at Seyre House."

The prince inclined his head gently. He remained monosyllabic.