"But of course you know--and much worse than the worst. The art of conversation isn't dead yet, whatever the--perhaps you saw me being got out?"

"No, I didn't."

"But you do know?"

"Naturally."

"I say, I wish you'd let me have--"

He checked himself abruptly, and muttered:

"Good God! What a brute I am."

He sprang up and walked about the room. Presently he stopped in front of the statuette of the "_Danseuse de Tunisie_."

"Is it the woman that does it all, or the fan?" he said. "I don't know.

Sometimes I think it's one, and sometimes the other. Without the fan there's purity, what's meant from the beginning--"

"By whom?" said Robin. "I thought you were an atheist?"

"Oh, God! I don't know what I am."

He turned away from the statuette.

"With the fan there's so much more than purity, than what was meant to complete us--as devils--men. But--mothers don't carry the fan. And I'm going North to-night."

"Do you mean to say that Lady Holme--?"

Robin's voice was stern.

"Why did she say that to me?"

"What did she say?"

"That she wished to speak to me, to dance with me."

"She said that? How can you know?"

"Oh, I wasn't so drunk that I couldn't hear the voice from Eden. Pierce, you know her. She likes you. Tell her to forgive as much as she can.

Will you? And tell her not to carry the fan again when fools like me are about."

And then, without more words, he went out of the room and left Robin standing alone.

Robin looked at the statuette, and remembered what Sir Donald Ulford had said directly he saw it--"Forgive me, that fan makes that statuette wicked."

"Poor old Carey!" he murmured.

His indignation at Carey's conduct, which had been hot, had nearly died away.

"If I had told him what she said about him at supper!" he thought.

And then he began to wonder whether Lady Holme had changed her mind on that subject. Surely she must have changed it. But one never knew--with women. He took up his hat and gloves and went out. If Lady Holme was in he meant to give her Carey's message. It was impossible to be jealous of Carey now.

Lady Holme was not in.

As Robin walked away from Cadogan Square he was not sure whether he was glad or sorry that he had not been able to see her.

After his cup of early morning tea Lord Holme had seemed to be "dear old Fritz" again, and Lady Holme felt satisfied with herself despite the wagging tongues of London. She knew she had done an incautious thing.

She knew, too, that Carey had failed her. Her impulse had been to use him as a weapon. He had proved a broken reed. And this failure on his part was likely to correct for ever her incautious tendencies. That was what she told herself, with some contempt for men. She did not tell herself that the use to which she had intended to put Carey was an unworthy one. Women as beautiful, and as successful in their beauty, as she was seldom tell themselves these medicinal truths.

She went about as usual, and on several occasions took Lord Holme with her. And though she saw a light of curiosity in many eyes, and saw lips almost forced open by the silent questions lurking within many minds, it was as she had said it would be. The immediate future had been in Fritz's hands, and he had made it safe enough.

He had made it safe. Even the Duchess of Arkell was quite charming, and laid the whole burden of blame--where it always ought to be laid, of course--upon the man's shoulders. Rupert Carey was quite done for socially. Everyone said so. Even Upper Bohemia thought blatant intemperance--in a Duke's house--an unnecessary defiance flung at the Blue Ribbon Army. Only Amalia Wolfstein, who had never succeeded in getting an invitation to Arkell House, remarked that "It was probably the champagne's fault. She had always noticed that where the host and hostess were dry the champagne was apt to be sweet."

Yes, Fritz had made it safe, but:

Circumstances presently woke in Lady Holme's mind a rather disagreeable suspicion that though Fritz had "come round" with such an admirable promptitude he had reserved to himself a right to retaliate, that he perhaps presumed to fancy that her defiant action, and its very public and unpleasant result, gave to him a greater license than he had possessed before.

Some days after the early morning tea Lord Holme said to his wife:

"I say, Vi, we've got nothing on the first, have we?"

There was a perceptible pause before she replied.

"Yes, we have. We've accepted a dinner at Brayley House."

Lord Holme looked exceedingly put out.

"Brayley House. What rot!" he exclaimed. "I hate those hind-leg affairs.

Why on earth did you accept it?"

"Dear boy, you told me to. But why?"

"Why what?"

"Why are you so anxious to be free for the first?"

"Well, it's Miss Schley's _debut_ at the British. Everyone's goin' and Laycock says--"

"I'm not very interested in Mr. Laycock's aphorisms, Fritz. I prefer yours, I truly do."

"Oh, well, I'm as good as Laycock, I know. Still--"

"You're a thousand times better. And so everybody's going, on Miss Schley's first night? I only wish we could, but we can't. Let's put up with number two. We're free on the second."

Lord Holme did not look at all appeased.

"That's not the same thing," he said.