Thereupon he marched out of the room, followed by his men, who each made an awkward bow at nothing in particular before going out.  Mr. Van Torp followed them at some distance towards the outer door, judging that as they had forced their way in they could probably find their way out.  He did not even go to the outer threshold, for the last of the three shut the door behind him.

When the millionaire came back Lady Maud was seated in the easy-chair, leaning forward and looking thoughtfully into the fire.  Assuredly no one would have suspected from her composed face that anything unusual had happened.  She glanced at her friend when he came in, but did not speak, and he began to walk up and down on the other side of the table, with his hands behind him.

‘You’ve got pretty good nerves,’ he said presently.

‘Yes,’ answered Lady Maud, still watching the coals, ’they really are rather good.’

A long silence followed, during which she did not move and Mr. Van Torp steadily paced the floor.

‘I didn’t tell a fib, either,’ she said at last.  ’It’s charity, in its way.’

‘Certainly,’ assented her friend.  ’What isn’t either purchase-money or interest, or taxes, or a bribe, or a loan, or a premium, or a present, or blackmail, must be charity, because it must be something, and it isn’t anything else you can name.’

‘A present may be a charity,’ said Lady Maud, still thoughtful.

‘Yes,’ answered Mr. Van Torp.  ‘It may be, but it isn’t always.’

He walked twice the length of the room before he spoke again.

‘Do you think it’s really to be war this time?’ he asked, stopping beside the table.  ’Because if it is, I’ll see a lawyer before I go to Derbyshire.’

Lady Maud looked up with a bright smile.  Clearly she had been thinking of something compared with which the divorce court was a delightful contrast.

‘I don’t know,’ she answered.  ’It must come sooner or later, because he wants to be free to marry that woman, and as he has not the courage to cut my throat, he must divorce me—­if he can!’

‘I’ve sometimes thought he might take the shorter way,’ said Van Torp.

‘He?’ Lady Maud almost laughed, but her companion looked grave.

‘There’s a thing called homicidal mania,’ he said.  ’Didn’t he shoot a boy in Russia a year ago?’

‘A young man—­one of the beaters.  But that was an accident.’

‘I’m not so sure.  How about that poor dog at the Theobalds’ last September?’

‘He thought the creature was mad,’ Lady Maud explained.

’He knows as well as you do that there’s no rabies in the British Isles,’ objected Mr. Van Torp.  ’Count Leven never liked that dog for some reason, and he shot him the first time he got a chance.  He’s always killing things.  Some day he’ll kill you, I’m afraid.’

‘I don’t think so,’ answered the lady carelessly.  ’If he does, I hope he’ll do it neatly!  I should hate to be maimed or mangled.’