“Of course you are,” he assured her.  “Can’t you understand that by the way people notice you?”

She strummed upon the table with her fingers.  Her whole body seemed to be moving to the music.  She nodded several times.

“I don’t want them to notice me, Philip,” she murmured.  “I want you to look just for a moment as though you thought me the only person in the world—­as you did once, you know.”

He did his best to be responsive, but he was not wholly successful.  Nevertheless, she was tolerant with his shortcomings.  They sat there until nearly three o’clock.  It was she at last who rose reluctantly to her feet.

“I want to go whilst the memory of it all is wonderful,” she declared.  “Come.  Here’s a card with my address on.  Drive me home now, please.”

He paid his bill and they found a cab.  She linked her arm through his, her head sank a little upon his shoulder.  He made no movement.  She waited for a moment, then she leaned back amongst the cushions.

“Philip,” she asked quietly, “has this Elizabeth Dalstan been letting you make love to her?”

“Please don’t speak of Miss Dalstan like that,” he begged.

“Answer my question,” she insisted.

“Miss Dalstan has been very kind to me,” he admitted slowly, “wonderfully kind.  If you really want to know, I do care for her.”

“More than you did for me?”

“Very much more,” he answered bravely, “and in a different fashion.”

In the darkness of the cab it seemed to him that her face had grown whiter.  Her arm remained within his but it clasped him no longer.  Her body seemed to have become limp.  Even her voice, firm though it was, seemed pitched in a different key.

“Listen,” she said.  “You will have to forget Miss Dalstan.  I have made up my mind what I want in life and I am going to have it.  I shall draw my money to-morrow morning and afterwards I shall come straight to your rooms.  Then we will talk.  I want more than just that money.  I am lonely.  And do you know, Philip, I believe that I must have cared for you all the time, and you—­you must have cared for me a little or you would never have done that for my sake.  You must and you shall care, Philip, because our time has come, and I want you, please—­shall I have to say it, dear?—­I want you to marry me.”

He wrenched himself free from her.

“That is quite out of the question, Beatrice,” he declared.

She laughed at him mockingly.

“Oh, don’t say that, Philip!  You might tempt me to be brutal.  You might tempt me to speak horribly plain words to you.”

“Speak them and have done with it,” he told her roughly.  “I might find a few, too.”

“I am past hurting,” she replied, “and I am not in the least afraid of anything you could say.  You robbed me of the man who was bringing me to America—­who would have married me some day, I suppose.  Well, you must pay, do you see, and in my way?  I have told you the way I choose.”