Robin came to bid her good-bye before leaving London for Rome. The weeping woman was gone. He looked into the hard, white face of a woman who smiled. They talked rather constrainedly for a few minutes. Then suddenly he said:

"Once it was a painted window, now it's an iron shutter."

He got up from his chair and clasped his hands together behind his back.

"What on earth do you mean?" she asked, still smiling.

"Your face," he answered. "One could see you obscurely before. One can see nothing now."

"You talk great nonsense, Robin. It's a good thing you're going back to Rome."

"At least I shall find the spirit of beauty there," he said, almost with bitterness. "Over here it is treated as if it were Jezebel. It's trodden down. It's thrown to the dogs."

"Poor spirit!"

She laughed lightly.

"Do you understand what they're saying of you?" he went on.

"Where?"

"All over London."

"Perhaps."

"But--do you?"

"Perhaps I don't care to."

"They're saying--'Poor thing! But it's her own fault.'"

There was a silence. In it he looked at her hard, mercilessly. She returned his gaze, still smiling.

"And it is your own fault," he went on after a moment. "If you had been yourself she couldn't have insulted you first and humiliated you afterwards. Oh, how I hate it! And yet--yet there are moments when I am like the others, when I feel--'She has deserved it.'"

"When will you be in Rome?" she said.

"And even now," he continued, ignoring her remark, "even now, what are you doing? Oh, Viola, you're a prey to the modern madness for crawling in the dirt instead of walking upright in the sun. You might be a goddess and you prefer to be an insect. Isn't it mad of you? Isn't it?"

He was really excited, really passionate. His face showed that. There was fire in his eyes. His lips worked convulsively when he was not speaking. And yet there was just a faint ring of the accomplished orator's music in his voice, a music which suggests a listening ear--and that ear the orator's own.

Perhaps she heard it. At any rate his passionate attack did not seem to move her.

"I prefer to be what I am," was all she said.

"What you are! But you don't know what you are."

"And how can you pretend to know?" she asked. "Is a man more subtle about a woman than she is about herself?"

He did not answer for a moment. Then he said bluntly:

"Promise me one thing before I go away."

"I don't know. What is it?"

"Promise me not to--not to--"

He hesitated. The calm of her face seemed almost to confuse him.

"Well?" she said. "Go on."

"Promise me not to justify anything people are saying, not to justify it with--with that fellow Ulford."

"Good-bye," she answered, holding out her hand.

He recognised that the time for his advice had gone by, if it had ever been.

"What a way--what a way for us to--" he almost stammered.

He recovered his self-possession with an effort and took her hand.

"At least," he said in a low, quiet voice, "believe it is less jealousy that speaks within me than love--love for you, for the woman you are trampling in the dust."

He looked into her eyes and went out. She did not see him again before he left England. And she was glad. She did not want to see him. Perhaps it was the first time in her life that the affection of a man whom she really liked was distasteful to her. It made her uneasy, doubtful of herself just then, to be loved as Robin loved her.

Carey had come back to town, but he went nowhere. He was in bad odour.

Sir Donald Ulford was almost the only person he saw anything of at this time. It seemed that Sir Donald had taken a fancy to Carey. At any rate, such friendly feeling as he had did not seem lessened after Carey's exhibition at Arkell House. When Carey returned to Stratton Street, Sir Donald paid him a visit and stayed some time. No allusion was made to the painful circumstances under which they had last seen each other until Sir Donald was on the point of going away. Then he said:

"You have not forgotten that I expect you at Casa Felice towards the end of August?"

Carey looked violently astonished.

"Still?" he said.

"Yes."

Suddenly Carey shot out his hand and grasped Sir Donald's.

"You aren't afraid to have a drunken beast like me in Casa Felice! It's a damned dangerous experiment."

"I don't think so."

"It's your own lookout, you know. I absolve you from the invitation."

"I repeat it, then."

"I accept it, then--again."

Sir Donald went away thoughtfully. When he reached the Albany he found Mrs. Leo Ulford waiting for him in tears. They had a long interview.