It had always been arranged that they were to be married when she left
the stage. But he wished her to remain on the stage till she had played
Kundry; but if she were going to leave the stage she did not care to
delay, nor did she care for the part of Kundry. The meaning of the part
escaped her.... So the time had come for her to offer herself to Owen.
Whatever his desires might be, his honour would force him to say Yes. So
there was no escape. Fate had decreed it so, she was to be his wife; but
one thing she need not endure, and that was unnecessary suspense. She
had decided to go to Lady Ascott's ball.... But she wouldn't see him
there. He was kept indoors by the gout. He had written asking her to
come and pass the evening with him.... She might call to see him on her
way to the ball; yes, that is what she would do, and she sat down at
once and wrote a note.

And she laughed and talked during dinner, and was surprised when Lady
Duckle remarked how pale and ill she was looking, for she thought she
was making a fine outward show of high spirits. She and Lady Duckle
were dining alone, and she tried to devise a plan for going to Berkeley
Square without taking Lady Duckle into her confidence. The horrible
scene with Owen flitted before her eyes while talking of other things.
And so the evening dragged itself out in the drawing-room.

"Olive, I want to make a call before going to Lady Ascott's; I will send
the carriage back for you."

"But we need not get there until a quarter to one. There will be plenty
of time."

"Very well," Evelyn answered, as unconcernedly as she could. "I'll be
here a little after twelve."

In the carriage she remembered that she was going to the same house to
tell him that she would be his wife as she had gone to tell him she
would be his mistress.

"Sir Owen has been very bad to-day, miss," the butler said in a
confidential undertone. "It has taken him again in his right toe;" and
he leaned forward to open the door of Owen's private sitting-room.

She passed in, the door closed softly behind her, and she saw her lover
lying in a large, chintz-covered arm-chair, full of cushions, deep like
a feather bed. He held his book high, so that all the light of the
electric lamp fell upon it, and the small, wrinkled face seemed to have
suddenly grown older behind the spectacles, and the appearance at that
moment was of a man just slipping over the years that divides middle
from old age.

In the s