did you offer
me your friendship, when it was too late to give me any help?"

No doubt, I told myself, this was but a morbid fancy of mine. If I could
have known the true motive of the glance I should have interpreted what
appeared like unutterable sadness as mere boredom.

Instead of the earnest appeal or reproach, I imagined at most the eyes
intended to say, "I have talked long enough with these stupid men, none
of whom have minds above cricket or football. Relieve me of them,
please."

But I had not even been able to do that, though I had tried, for as I
attempted to oust the boldest of the group in my own favour, Lady
Tressidy had swept across the room, with sharp rustling of silken
linings and satin skirts, to claim me for an introduction to "an old
friend who had longed for years to know me."

At length, however, as I said, I had contrived an escape, and was
finding my way towards Karine, when, before I had reached her, I saw her
start, staring past me with a white, frozen look on her face that for
the moment blotted out much of its innocent youthfulness and beauty.

She was gazing in the direction of the door, with dark, dilated eyes,
and lips tightly closed in a line of scarlet that faded to palest pink.

It was as though into the midst of the gossip and laughter and brilliant
light had crept a spectre which she alone could see. Some such look I
had seen in the eyes of a dove which had been offered up as food for a
constrictor. Involuntarily I turned and glanced behind me.

No name had been announced, though I had heard the opening and closing
of the door, and now, as I faced round in that direction, I saw that Sir
Walter Tressidy and Carson Wildred had come in together.

Evidently this was not Wildred's first entrance, for like Sir Walter, he
had neither hat nor stick. He moved forward by his companion's side with
the unmistakably-assured air of the friend of the house, and I
instinctively understood that he had lunched with the Tressidys, and
since that time had been closeted on some business of importance with
his host.

Unreasoningly, I hated him for his privileges. With more of reason, I
hated him because I believed the look I had seen for a single instant on
Karine Cunningham's face was connected with his presence.

That look was gone now. When I removed my eyes from Wildred, and turned
again to her, her delicate, spiritual profile only was visible. Her head
was graciously inclined towards the m