“Thank you, Imp, for letting me see that you are such a staunch little friend,” said he.  “Now that I know you really do take an interest in my affairs, I think I may tell you why I want so much to go to Algiers—­though very likely you’ve guessed already—­you are such an ‘intuitive’ girl.  And besides, I haven’t tried very hard to hide my feelings—­not as hard as I ought, perhaps, when I realise how little I have to offer to your sister.  Now you understand all, don’t you—­even if you didn’t before?  I love her, and if I go to Algiers—­”

“Don’t say any more,” I managed to cut him short.  “I can’t bear—­I mean, I understand.  I—­did guess before.”

It was true.  I had guessed, but I wouldn’t let myself believe.  I hoped against hope.  He was so much kinder to me than any other man ever took the trouble to be, in all my wretched, embittered twenty-four years of life.

“Di might have told me,” I went gasping on, rather than let there be a long silence between us just then.  I had enough pride not to want him to see me cry—­though, if it could have made any difference, I would have grovelled at his feet and wet them with my tears.  “But she never does tell me anything about herself.”

“She’s so unselfish and so fond of you, that probably she likes better to talk about you instead,” he defended her.  And then I felt that I could hate him, as much as I’ve always hated Di, deep down in my heart.  At that minute I should have liked to kill her, and watch his face when he found her lying dead—­out of his reach for ever.

“Besides,” he hurried on, “I’ve never asked her yet if she would marry me, because—­my prospects weren’t very brilliant.  She knows of course that I love her—­”

“And if you get the consulship, you’ll put the important question?” I cut him short, trying to be flippant.

“Yes.  But I told you tonight, because I—­because you were so kind, I felt I should like to have you know.”

Kind!  Yes, I had been too kind.  But if by putting out my foot I could have crushed every hope of his for the future—­every hope, that is, in which my stepsister Diana Forrest had any part—­I would have done it, just as I trample on ants in the country sometimes, for the pleasure of feeling that I—­even I—­have power of life and death.

I swallowed hard, to keep the sobs back.  I’m never very strong or well, but now I felt broken, ready to die.  I was glad when I heard the music stop in the ballroom.

“There!” I said.  “The two dances you asked me to sit out with you are over.  I’m sure you’re engaged for the next.”

“Yes, Imp, I am.”

“To Di?”

“No, I have Number 13 with her.”

“Thirteen!  Unlucky number.”

“Any number is lucky that gives me a chance with her.  The next one, coming now, is with Mrs. George Allendale.”

“Oh, yes, the actor manager’s wife.  She goes everywhere; and Lord Mountstuart likes theatrical celebrities.  This house ought to be very serious and political, but we have every sort of creature—­provided it’s an amusing, or successful, or good-looking one.  By the way, used Maxine de Renzie to come here, when she was acting in London at George Allendale’s theatre?  That was before Di and I arrived on the scene, you remember.”