He took out pencil and paper.

"Of course. Give me your address."

She began, but stopped short with a little cry.

"Whatever am I doing!" she exclaimed. "Why, Douglas, you mustn't think of writing nor of sending anything to me. Joan might see it, and she would know your handwriting in a moment."

He paused with the pencil in his hand.

"That's rather a nuisance," he said. "Isn't there somewhere else I can write?"

She shook her head regretfully.

"I'm afraid not."

"It is rather ridiculous," he said frowning. "I don't want to go about in fear and trembling all my life. Don't you think that if I were to see her or write to you I could convince--"

She stopped him, horrified.

"Douglas," she said, "you don't understand Joan. I am not sure that even I, who live with her, do. She reminds me sometimes of those women of the French revolution. There is a light in her eyes when she speaks of you, which makes me shiver. Stay in London if you must, but pray always that chance may not bring you two together."

He answered her with an affectation of lightness, but her words were not without effect upon him. He paid the bill and she lowered her veil.

Out in the street he would have called a hansom, but she checked him.

"An omnibus, if you please, Douglas!" she exclaimed. "Joan would never forgive me the extravagance if she saw me in a cab. I can find one at the corner, and I should feel so much more comfortable if you would leave me here."

He looked down at her and realised once more the dainty Watteau--like grace of her oval face and slim, supple figure. He thought of the days when they had stolen out together on to the hillside, oftenest in the falling twilight, sometimes even in the grey dawn, and his heart beat regretfully. How was it that in those days he had never more fully realised her charms?

"I hate letting you go alone," he said, truthfully; "and I certainly cannot let you go like this, without any idea as to your whereabouts."

"We are staying in Wensum Street," she said. "I tell you that you may avoid the neighbourhood. If I am to see you again, it certainly must not be there."

"Why not here?" he urged; "next Thursday night--say at half-past six. I must not lose sight of you again--so soon."

She raised her eyes quickly. It was pleasant to her to think that he cared.

"I think I could manage that," she said, softly.

Douglas went off to his club with a keen sense of having acquired a new interest in life. He was in that mood when companionship of some sort is a necessity.

CHAPTER XXI

THE REBELLION OF DREXLEY

"You think," Drexley said, his deep, ba.s.s voice trembling with barely-restrained pa.s.sion, "that we are all your puppets--that you have but to touch the string and we dance to your tune. Leave young Jesson alone, Emily. He has been man enough to strike out a line for himself.

Let him keep to it. Give him a chance."

She shrugged her shoulders and smiled upon him sweetly. She always preferred Drexley in his less abject moods.

"You have seen him lately, my friend?" she inquired. "He is well, I hope?"

"Yes, he is well," Drexley answered, bitterly. "Living, like a sensible man, honestly by the labour of his brain, the friend and companion of men--not the sycophant of a woman. I envy him."

She pointed lazily towards the door.

"He was man enough to choose for himself," she said; "so may you. To tell you the truth, my dear friend, when you weary me like this, I feel inclined to say--go, and when I say go--it is for always."

Then there came into his face something which she had seen there once before, and which ever since she had recalled with a vague uneasiness--the look murderous. The veins in his forehead became like whipcord--there was a red flash in his eyes. Yet his self-control was marvellous. His voice, when he spoke, seemed scarcely to rise above a whisper.

"For always?" he surmised--"it would be rest at least. You are not an easy task-mistress, Emily."

Her momentary fear of him evaporated almost as quickly as it had been conceived. She stood with her hand on the bell. "I think," she said, "that you had better go to your club."

He held out a protesting hand--tamed at any rate for the moment.

"You were speaking of Jesson," he said. "Well?"

She moved her finger from the bell, conscious that the crisis was past.

She might yet score a victory.

"Yes, I was speaking of Jesson," she continued, lazily. "As you remark--none too politely, by-the-bye--he has decided to do without my help. I have no objection to that. I admire independence in a man.

Yet when he spoke to me from his point of view I am afraid that I was rude. We parted, at any rate, abruptly. I have been thinking it over and I am sorry for it. I should like to let him know that on the whole I approve of his intention."

"Write and tell him to come and see you then," Drexley said, gruffly.

"He can't refuse--poor devil."

The beautifully-shaped eyebrows of the Countess de Reuss were a trifle uplifted. Yet she smiled faintly.

"No," she said, "he could not refuse. But it is not quite what I want.

If I write to him he will imagine many things."

"What do you want me to do?" he asked brusquely.

"You see him often at the club?"

"Yes."

"Go there to-night. Say that we have spoken of him; hint that this absolute withdrawal from my house must appear ungrateful--has seemed so to me. I shall be at home alone a week to-night. Do you understand?"

"I understand, at least, that I am not to come and see you a week to-night," he answered with a harsh laugh.

"That is quite true, my friend," she said, "but what of it? You have no special claim, have you, to monopolise my society?--you nor any man.

You are all my friends."

There was a knock at the door--a maid entered.

"Her ladyship will excuse me," she said, "but she is dining at Dowchester House to-night at eight o'clock."