Young Robin had meanwhile had a quick eye on us both, and the stump of his own cigarette was glowing between a firmer pair of lips than I had looked for in that boyish face.

“It’s so funny,” said he (but there was no fun in his voice), “the prejudice some people have against ladies smoking.  Why shouldn’t they?  Where’s the harm?”

Now there is no new plea to be advanced on either side of this eternal question, nor is it one upon which I ever felt strongly, but just then I felt tempted to speak as though I did.  I will not now dissect my motive, but it was vaguely connected with my mission, and not unrighteous from that standpoint.  I said it was not a question of harm at all, but of what one admired in a woman, and what one did not:  a man loved to look upon a woman as something above and beyond him, and there could be no doubt that the gap seemed a little less when both were smoking like twin funnels.  That, I thought, was the adverse point of view; I did not say that it was mine.

“I’m glad to hear it,” said Bob Evers, with the faintest coldness in his tone, though I fancied he was fuming within, and admired both his chivalry and his self-control.  “To me it’s quite funny.  I call it sheer selfishness.  We enjoy a cigarette ourselves; why shouldn’t they?  We don’t force them to be teetotal, do we?  Is it bad form for a lady to drink a glass of wine?  You mightn’t bicycle once, might you, Mrs. Lascelles?  I daresay Captain Clephane doesn’t approve of that yet!”

“That’s hitting below the belt,” said I, laughing.  “I wasn’t giving you my opinion, but only the old-fashioned view of the matter.  I wish you’d take one, Mrs. Lascelles, or I shall think I’ve been misunderstood all round!”

“No, thank you, Captain Clephane.  That old-fashioned feeling is infectious.”

“Then I will,” cried Bob, “to show there’s no ill-feeling.  You old fire-eater, I believe you just put up the argument to change the conversation.  Wouldn’t you like a chair for those game legs?”

“No, I’ve got to use them in moderation.  I was going to have a stroll when I spotted you at last.”

“Then we’ll all take one together,” cried the genial old Bob once more.  “It’s a bit cold standing here, don’t you think, Mrs. Lascelles?  After you with the match!”

But I held it so long that he had to strike another, for I had looked on Mrs. Lascelles at last.  It was not an obviously interesting face, like Catherine’s, but interest there was of another kind.  There was nothing intellectual in the low brow, no enthusiasm for books and pictures in the bold eyes, no witticism waiting on the full lips; but in the curve of those lips and the look from those eyes, as in the deep chin and the carriage of the hooded head, there was something perhaps not lower than intellect in the scale of personal equipment.  There was, at all events, character and to spare.  Even by the brief glimmer of a single match I could see that (and more) for myself.  Then came a moment’s interval before Bob struck his light, and in that moment her face changed.  As I saw it next, it appealed, it entreated, until the second match was flung away.  And the appeal was to such purpose that I do not think I was five seconds silent.