“Where shall I find you?” he asked.

“By the door, here.”

And upon that Shere Ali’s voice changed to one of appeal.  There came a note of longing into his voice.  He looked at Violet Oliver with burning eyes.  He seemed unaware Linforth was standing by.

“You will not fail me?” he said; and Linforth moved impatiently.

“No.  I shall be there,” said Violet Oliver, and she spoke hurriedly and moved by through the doorway.  Beneath her eyelids she stole a glance at her companion.  His face was clouded.  The scene which he had witnessed had jarred upon him, and still jarred.  When he spoke to her his voice had a sternness which Violet Oliver had not heard before.  But she had always been aware that it might be heard, if at any time he disapproved.

“‘Your friend,’ you called him, speaking to me,” he said.  “It seems that he is your friend too.”

“He was with you at La Grave.  I met him there.”

“He comes to your house?”

“He has called once or twice,” said Mrs. Oliver submissively.  It was by no wish of hers that Shere Ali had appeared at this dance.  She had, on the contrary, been at some pains to assure herself that he would not be there.  And while she answered Linforth she was turning over in her mind a difficulty which had freshly arisen.  Shere Ali was returning to India.  In some respects that was awkward.  But Linforth’s ill-humour promised her a way of escape.  He was rather silent during the earlier part of their supper.  They had a little table to themselves, and while she talked, and talked with now and then an anxious glance at Linforth, he was content to listen or to answer shortly.  Finally she said: 

“I suppose you will not see your friend again before he starts?”

“Yes, I shall,” replied Linforth, and the frown gathered afresh upon his forehead.  “He dines to-morrow night with me at Chatham.”

“Then I want to ask you something,” she continued.  “I want you not to mention to him that I am paying a visit to India in the cold weather.”

Linforth’s face cleared in an instant.

“I am glad that you have made that request,” he said frankly.  “I have no right to say it, perhaps.  But I think you are wise.”

“Things are possible here,” she agreed, “which are impossible there.”

“Friendship, for instance.”

“Some friendships,” said Mrs. Oliver; and the rest of their supper they ate cheerily enough.  Violet Oliver was genuinely interested in her partner.  She was not very familiar with the large view and the definite purpose.  Those who gathered within her tiny drawing-room, who sought her out at balls and parties, were, as a rule, the younger men of the day, and Linforth, though like them in age and like them, too, in his capacity for enjoyment, was different in most other ways.  For the large view and the definite purpose coloured all his life, and, though he spoke little of either, set him apart.