"Good gracious--well, of course you don't know--you have not had to interview people."

"What people?"

"Sir Pleydell Harcourt for instance, who had sixteen pianos sent to him only last week, to say nothing of pantechnicon vans and half the contents of Harrods' and Whiteleys', so that Arlington Street was blocked, simply blocked, the whole of last Friday."

"Did he say Arthur had sent them?"

"He had no direct proof--but he knew. There was no other man in London would have done such a thing."

"Did you send them, Ju-ju?"

"No," said Jones. "I did not."

Venetia rose.

"You admitted to me, yourself, that you did," said she.

"I was only joking," he replied.

Teresa went to the bell and rang it.

"Good night," said Venetia, "after that I have nothing more to say."

"Thank goodness," murmured Teresa when she was gone. "She made me shiver with her talk about extravagance. I've been horribly extravagant the last week--when a woman is distracted she runs to clothes for relief--anyhow I did. I've got three new evening frocks and I want to show you them. I've never known your taste wrong."

"Good," said Jones, "I'd like to see them."

"Guess what they cost?"

"Can't."

"Two hundred and fifty--and they are a bargain. You're not shocked, are you?"

"Not a bit."

"Well, come and look at them--what's the time? Half past ten." She led the way upstairs.

On the first landing she turned to the left, opened a door and disclosed a bed-room where a maid was moving about arranging things and unpacking boxes.

A large cardboard box lay open on the floor, it was filled with snow white lingerie. The instinct to bolt came upon Jones so strongly that he might have obeyed it, only for the hand upon his arm pressing him down into a chair.

"Anne," said the Countess of Rochester, "bring out my new evening gowns, I want to show them."

Then she turned to the cardboard box. "Here's some more of my extravagance. I couldn't resist them, Venetia nearly had a fit when she saw the bill--Look!"

She exhibited frilled and snow white things, delicate and diaphanous and fit to be worn by angels. Then the dresses arrived, and were laid out on the bed and inspected. There was a black gown and a grey gown and a confection in pale blue. If Jones had been asked to price them he would have said a hundred dollars. Like most men he was absolutely unconscious of the worth of a woman's dress. To a woman a Purdy and a ten guinea Birmingham gun are just the same, and to a man, a ten guinea Bayswater dress is little different, if worn by a pretty girl, from a seventy guinea Bond Street--is it Bond Street--rig out. Unless he is a man milliner.

Jones said "beautiful," gave the palm to the blue, and watched them carried off again by the maid.

He had left his cigarettes down stairs; there were some in a box on a table, she made him take one and lit it for him, then she disappeared into a room adjoining, returning in a few minutes dressed in a kimono covered with golden swallows and followed by the maid. Then she took her seat before a great mirror and the maid began to take down her hair and brush it.

As the brushing went on she talked to the maid and to Jones upon all sorts of subjects. To the maid about the condition of her--Teresa's--hair, and a new fashion in hair dressing, to Jones about the Opera, the stoutness of Caruso, and kindred matters.

The hair having been arranged in one great gorgeous plait, Jones suddenly breaking free from a weird sort of hypnotism that had held him since first entering the room, rose to his feet.

"I'll be back in a minute," said he.

He crossed the room, reached the door, opened it and pa.s.sed out closing the door. In the corridor he stood for half a moment with his hand to his head.

Then he came down the stairs, crossed the hall, seized a hat and overcoat, put them on and opened the hall door.

All the way down the stairs and across the hall, he felt as though he were being driven along by some viewless force, and now, standing at the door, that same force pushed him out of the house and on to the steps.

He closed the door, came down the steps, and turned to the right.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE MENTAL TRAP

It was a beautiful night, warm and starlit, the waning moon had just begun to rise in the east and as he turned into the green Park a breath of tepid wind, gra.s.s-scented and balmy blew in his face.

He walked in the direction of Buckingham Palace.

Where was he to go? He had no ideas, no plans.

He had failed in performing the Duty that Fate had arranged for him to perform. He had failed, but not through cowardice, or at least not through fear of consequences to himself.

The man who refuses to cut a lamb's throat, even though Duty calls him to the act, has many things to be said for him.

His distracted mind was not dealing with this matter, however. What held him entirely was the thought of her waiting for him and how she would feel when she found he had deserted her. He had acted like a brute and she would hate him accordingly. Not him, but Rochester.

It was the same thing. The old story. Hatred, obloquy, disdain levelled against Rochester affected him as though it were levelled against himself. He could not take refuge in his own personality. Even on the first day of his new life he had found that out at the club. Since then the struggle to maintain his position and the battles he had fought had steadily weakened his mental position as Jones, strengthened his position as Rochester.

The strange psychological fact was becoming plain, though not to him, that the jealousy he ought to have felt on account of this woman's love for Rochester was not there.

This woman had fascinated him, as women had perhaps never fascinated a man before; she had kissed him, she loved him, and though his reason told him quite plainly that he was Victor Jones and that she loved and had kissed another man, his heart did not resent that fact.

Rochester was dead. It seemed to him that Rochester had never lived.

He left the Park and came along Knightsbridge still thinking of her sitting there waiting for him, his mind straying from that to the kiss, the dinner, the bowl of roses that stood between them--her voice.

Then all at once these considerations vanished, all at once, and like an extinguisher, fell on him that awful sensation of negation.

His mind pulled this way and that between contending forces, became a blank written across with letters of fire forming the question: