“Oh, no, you wouldn’t,” I assured him.

“But I tell you I would!” he cried.  “Do you think there’s any harm in my going about with Mrs. Lascelles because I rather like her and she rather likes me?  I won’t condescend to give you my word that I mean none.”

What answer could I give?  His charming frankness quite disarmed me, and the more completely because I felt that a dignified reticence would have been yet more characteristic of this clean, sweet youth, with his noble unconsciousness alike of evil and of evil speaking.  I told him the truth—­that there could be no harm at all with such a fellow as himself.  And he wrung my hand until he hurt it; but the physical pain was a relief.

Never can I remember going up to bed with a better opinion of another person, or a worse one of myself.  How could I go on with my thrice detestable undertaking?  Now that I was so sure of him, why should I even think of it for another moment?  Why not go back to London and tell his mother that her early confidence had not been misplaced, that the lad did know how to take care of himself, and better still of any woman whom he chose to honour with his bright, pure-hearted friendship?  All this I felt as strongly as any conviction I have ever held.  Why, then, could I not write it at once to Catherine in as many words?

Strange how one forgets, how I had forgotten in half an hour!  The reason came home to me on the stairs, and for the second time.

It had come home first by the light of those two matches, struck outside in the dark part of the deserted terrace.  It was not the lad whom I distrusted, but the woman of whose face I had then obtained my only glimpse—­that night.

I had known her, after all, in India years before.

CHAPTER IV

A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE

Once in the Town Hall at Simla (the only time I was ever there) it was my fortune to dance with a Mrs. Heymann of Lahore, a tall woman, but a featherweight partner, and in all my dancing days I never had a better waltz.  To my delight she had one other left, though near the end, and we were actually dancing when an excitable person came out of the card-room, flushed with liquor and losses, and carried her off in the most preposterous manner.  It was a shock to me at the time to learn that this outrageous little man was my partner’s husband.  Months later, when I came across their case in the papers, it was, I am afraid, without much sympathy for the injured husband.  The man was quite unpresentable, and I had seen no more of him at Simla, but of the woman just enough to know her by matchlight on the terrace at the Riffel Alp.

And this was Bob’s widow, this dashing divorcee!  Dashing she was as I now remembered her, fine in mould, finer in spirit, reckless and rebellious as she well might be.  I had seen her submit before a ball-room, but with the contempt that leads captivity captive.  Seldom have I admired anything more.  It was splendid even to remember, the ready outward obedience, the not less apparent indifference and disdain.  There was a woman whom any man might admire, who had had it in her to be all things to some man!  But Bob Evers was not a man at all.  And this—­and this—­was his widow!