lashed out at her. "Poor erring Lady Jo! Don't be
too hard on her! She has her points."

She laid her hand quickly on his arm. "Don't try to defend her! She is
quite despicable. I have done with her."

His hand was instantly on hers. He laughed into her eyes. "I'll wager you
have a lingering fellow-feeling for her even yet."

"Not since she was reported to have run away with you," countered Juliet.

He laughed aloud. "Ah! She forfeited your sympathy there, did she? _Mais,
Juliette_--" his voice sank suddenly upon a caressing note, "there are few
women to whom I could not give happiness--for a time."

"I know," said Juliet, and drew her hand away. "That is why we all admire
you so. But even you, most potent Charles, couldn't satisfy a woman who
was wanting--some one else."

"You don't think I could make her forget?" he said.

She shook her head, smiling. "When the real thing comes along, all shams
must go overboard. It's the rule of the game."

"And this is the real thing?" he questioned.

She made a little gesture as of one who accepts the inevitable. "_Je le
crois bien_," she said softly.

Lord Saltash made a grimace. "And I am to give you up without a thought
to this bounder?"

"You would," she replied gently, "if I were yours to give."

"If you were Lady Jo for instance?" he suggested.

"Exactly. If I were Lady Jo." She looked at him with the faint
smile still at her lips. "It won't cost you much to be generous,
Charles," she said.

"How do you know what it costs?" He frowned at her suddenly. "You'll
accuse me of being benevolent next. But I'm not benevolent, and I'm not
going to be. I might be to Lady Jo, but not to you, _ma cherie_,--never
to you!" His grin burst through his frown. "Come! Sit down! I'll get
you a drink."

She turned to the deep settee, and sank down among tigerskins with a
sigh. He opened a cupboard in the panelling of the wall, and there
followed the chink of glasses and the cheery buzz of a syphon. In a few
moments he came to her with a tall glass in his hand containing a frothy
drink. "Look here, _Juliette_!" he said. "Come to France with me in the
_Night Moth_, and we'll find Lady Jo!"

She accepted the drink and lay back without looking at him. "You always
were an eccentric," she said. "I don't want to find Lady Jo."

He sat on the head of the settee at her elbow. "It's quite a fair offer,"
he said, as if she had not spoken. "You will--eventually--return from
Paris, and no