even such as I am, she may not have me
very long now. I had letters from home this morning. Father is not very
well, and mother writes that he misses me. I am thinking of returning
soon."

"But--but you have only just come!"

She brightened and laughed at the dismay in his voice. "Indeed, I have
been here six weeks." She looked out over the shimmering moonlit waters
of the Tagus and the shadowy, ghostly ships of the British fleet that
rode at anchor there, and her eyes were wistful. Her fingers, with that
little gesture peculiar to her in moments of constraint, were again
entwining themselves in her rope of pearls. "Yes," she said almost
musingly, "I think I must be going soon."

He was dismayed. He realised that the moment for action had come. His
heart was sounding the charge within him. And then that cursed rope of
pearls, emblem of the wealth and luxury in which she had been nurtured,
stood like an impassable abattis across his path.

"You--you will be glad to go, of course?" he suggested.

"Hardly that. It has been very pleasant here." She sighed.

"We shall miss you very much," he said gloomily. "The house at Monsanto
will not be the same when you are gone. Una will be lost and desolate
without you."

"It occurs to me sometimes," she said slowly, "that the people about Una
think too much of Una and too little of themselves."

It was a cryptic speech. In another it might have signified a
spitefulness unthinkable in Sylvia Armytage; therefore it puzzled him
very deeply. He stood silent, wondering what precisely she might mean,
and thus in silence they continued for a spell. Then slowly she turned
and the blaze of light from the windows fell about her irradiantly.
She was rather pale, and her eyes were of a suspiciously excessive
brightness. And again she made use of the phrase:

"Una will be waiting for you."

Yet, as before, he stood silent and immovable, considering her,
questioning himself, searching her face and his own soul. All he saw was
that rope of shimmering pearls.

"And after all, as yourself suggested, it is possible that others may be
waiting for me," she added presently.

Instantly he was crestfallen and contrite. "I sincerely beg your pardon,
Miss Armytage," and with a pang of which his imperturbable exterior gave
no hint he proffered her his arm.

She took it, barely touching it with her finger-tips, and they
re-entered the ante-room.

"When do you think that you will be leaving?"