Sybil Linforth maintained a determined silence—­not for anything would she admit, even to herself, that Violet Oliver was beautiful.

“You are telling me nothing,” she said.

“There is so little to tell,” replied Sir John.  “Violet Oliver comes of a family which is known, though it is not rich.  She studied music with a view to making her living as a singer.  For she has a very sweet voice, though its want of power forbade grand opera.  Her studies were interrupted by the appearance of a cavalry captain, who made love to her.  She liked it, whereas she did not like studying music.  Very naturally she married the cavalry officer.  Captain Oliver took her with him abroad, and, I believe, brought her to India.  At all events she knows something of India, and has friends there.  She is going back there this winter.  Captain Oliver was killed in a hill campaign two years ago.  Mrs. Oliver is now twenty-three years old.  That is all.”

Mrs. Linforth, however, was not satisfied.

“Was Captain Oliver rich?” she asked.

“Not that I know of,” said Sir John.  “His widow lives in a little house at the wrong end of Curzon Street.”

“But she is wearing to-night very beautiful pearls,” said Sybil Linforth quietly.

Sir John Casson moved suddenly in his chair.  Moreover, Sybil Linforth’s eyes were at that moment resting with a quiet scrutiny upon his face.

“It was difficult to see exactly what she was wearing,” he said.  “The gap in the crowd filled up so quickly.”

“There was time enough for any woman,” said Mrs. Linforth with a smile.  “And more than time enough for any mother.”

“Mrs. Oliver is always, I believe, exquisitely dressed,” said Sir John with an assumption of carelessness.  “I am not much of a judge myself.”

But his carelessness did not deceive his companion.  Sybil Linforth was certain, absolutely certain, that the cause of the constraint and embarrassment which had been audible in Sir John’s voice, and noticeable in his very manner, was that double string of big pearls of perfect colour which adorned Violet Oliver’s white throat.

She looked Sir John straight in the face.

“Would you introduce Dick to Mrs. Oliver now, if you had not done it before?” she asked.

“My dear lady,” protested Sir John, “if I met Dick at a little hotel in the Dauphine, and did not introduce him to the ladies who were travelling with me, it would surely reflect upon Dick, not upon the ladies”; and with that subtle evasion Sir John escaped from the fire of questions.  He turned the conversation into another channel, pluming himself upon his cleverness.  But he forgot that the subtlest evasions of the male mind are clumsy and obvious to a woman, especially if the woman be on the alert.  Sybil Linforth did not think Sir John had showed any cleverness whatever.  She let him turn the conversation, because she knew what she had set out to know.  That string of pearls had made the difference between Sir John’s estimate of Violet Oliver last year and his estimate of her this season.