mbed the smooth
ascent of her breast, passed up the columned tower of her throat and
stared out at him excitedly in the brightness of her eyes.

"Men don't ask things like that," she said reproachfully, "at least,
only when they're flirting. I sometimes think---- Don't treat me like
all the others who were before me."

"What others?"

She held his gaze. "The emotional women and silly girls---- You must
have been loved very often, Lord Taborley."

To have defended himself against her tender jealousy would have been
futile. She was plainly anxious to believe her accusation. Perhaps it
flattered her a little. Perhaps it lent him an added touch of glamor. He
was wondering how he should satisfy her. He could remember no hearts
that his fascination had broken. He could rake up absolutely---- She was
speaking again.

"And yet I'm glad you compelled me to tell you that I wanted you. You're
making me do things that I never did before in my life. I'm supposed to
be a cold woman. You'll find people who'll say that I'm remote and
domineering. I've only one big affection--my little boy. For your sake
I'm leaving him alone to-night."

"For mine?"

"For whose else?"

"I thought for Terry's."

Her lips parted. The laughter died in her eyes. "In your heart you knew
better."

Then he left her and went down to the inn to pack his bag.

VII

He had paid his bill. His luggage had been carried downstairs. There was
still a full quarter of an hour to wait. He sat in his bedroom smoking
furiously. Before he met her again, he wanted to know precisely what had
happened to himself--and, perhaps, to her.

He was filled with self-distrust. His newly discovered propensity for
falling in love was genuinely alarming. It wasted his time, upset his
plans and robbed him of his mental vigor. It made him a rudderless ship
at the mercy of any chance winds of sentiment. Up to less than three
months ago the solitary woman in his life had been Terry. Throughout the
war, while the masculine world had been making an amorous idiot of
itself, he had kept his head clear and gone straight. Things had come to
a pretty pass if now, when normality was returning and the excuse for
running wild was out-of-date, he should start on his emotional
escapades. His love for Terry had been deep-rooted. His fondness for
Maisie had been the attempt of a starved heart to satisfy its craving
with a substitute. But where was this pursuit of substitutes to end? If