ristine listened apathetically. She wondered who the voice was
talking about; she half turned; trying to see the speaker, but the
palms effectually screened him.

A second, less distinct voice made some remark, and the first speaker
answered with a little laugh:

"Yes--dead keen, wasn't he, poor beggar; but he wasn't rich enough for
her. A woman like that makes diamonds trumps every time, and not
hearts, you know--eh? Poor old Jimmy--he always hated Mortlake like
the devil. . . . She was in Mortlake's car when the smash occurred,
you know . . . No, I don't much think she'll marry him. If she goes
on at the rate she's going now, she'll be flying for higher game in a
month or two. I know women of that stamp--had some myself, as you
might say. . . . What--really! poor old chap! Thought he only got
married the other day."

The second voice was more audible now:

"So he did; some little girl from the country, I hear. God alone knows
why he did it. . . . Anyway, there can't be any affection in it,
because I happen to know that Jimmy was sent for to-night. They said
she asked for him as soon as she could speak. . . . Jimmy, mark you!
not a bob in the world. . . ." The voice broke in a cynical laugh.

Jimmy! They were talking of Jimmy--and----

All the blood in her body seemed to concentrate suddenly in her heart,
and then rush away from it, turning her faint and sick. The many
lights in the big lounge seemed to twinkle and go out.

She pressed her feet hard to the floor; she shut her eyes.

After a moment she felt better; her brain began to work again stiffly.

So Jimmy was with Cynthia, after all. Jimmy had been sent for, and
Jimmy had gone.

This was the end of everything; this was the end of all her dreams of
happiness of the future.

She sat there for a long, long time, unconscious of her surroundings;
it was only when the band had stopped playing, and a sort of silence
fell everywhere, that she moved stiffly and went back up the stairs to
her own room.

She stood there by the bed for a moment, looking round her with dull
eyes; the clock on the mantel-shelf pointed to nine.

Too late to go away to-night. Was it too late? A sudden memory leapt
to her mind.

Jimmy and she had gone down to Upton House by a train later than this
the day after her mother died. She tried to remember; it had been the
nine-fifty from Euston, she was sure. She made a rapid calculation;
she could catch that if s