here?" she asked in a low tone.

"My dear Lady Ruth!" he protested.

"If you want to play at being friends," she said, "for heaven's sake
call me Ruth. You found it easy enough once."

"You are very kind," he answered. "Ruth, by all means."

"Now will you answer my question?" she said. "Do you mean--to help us?"

"Us--no!" he answered; "you--perhaps yes!" he added.

Then she looked at him, and found herself puzzled by the perfect
impassivity of his features. Surely he would drop the mask now. He had
insisted upon her coming!

"Perhaps?" she repeated. "What then--are the conditions?"

He bent over towards her. Curiously enough, there was, mingled with
many other sensations, a certain sense of triumph in the thought, it was
almost a hope, that at last he was going to betray himself, that he was
going to admit tacitly, or by imputation, that her power over him was
not wholly dead. It was a terrible situation--in her heart she felt so,
but it had its compensations. Wingrave had been her constant attendant
for months. He had seen her surrounded by men, all anxious to secure a
smile from her; he had seen her play the great lady in her own house,
and she played it very well. She knew that she was a past mistress in
the arts which fascinate his sex, she understood the quiet speeches, the
moods, every trick of the gamester in emotions, from the fluttering
of eyelids to the unchaining of the passions. And he had loved her.
Underneath it all, he must love her now. She was determined that he
should tell her so. It was genuine excitement which throbbed in her
pulses, a genuine color which burned in her cheeks.

"The conditions?" he repeated. "You believe, then, that I mean to make
conditions?"

She raised her eyes to his, eloquent eyes she knew, and looked at him.
The mask was still there--but he had moved a little nearer to her.

"I do not know," she said softly. "You must tell me."

There was a moment's silence. She had scarcely given herself credit for
such capacity for emotion. He was on his feet. Surely the mask must go
now! And then--she felt that it must be a nightmare. It was incredible!
He had struck a match and was calmly lighting a cigarette.

"One," he said coolly, "is that Mademoiselle Violet employs no more
amateur assassins to make clumsy attempts upon my life."

She sat in her place rigid--half frozen with a cold, numbing fear. He
had sent for her, then, only to mock her. She had failed! They were not