“Oh, Lucy,” whispered Rita, “what a pal you are.”

Sir Lucien smiled in his cold fashion.

“I try to be,” he said enigmatically; “but I don’t always succeed.”  He turned to her.  “Have you ever thought of giving up this doping?” he asked.  “Have you ever realized that with increasing tolerance the quantities must increase as well, and that a day is sure to come when—­”

Rita repressed a nervous shudder.

“You are trying to frighten me,” she replied.  “You have tried before; I don’t know why.  But it’s no good, Lucy.  You know I cannot give it up.”

“You can try.”

“I don’t want to try!” she cried irritably.  “It will be time enough when Monte is back again, and we can really ‘live.’  This wretched existence, with everything restricted and rationed, and all one’s friends in Flanders or Mesopotamia or somewhere, drives me mad!  I tell you I should die, Lucy, if I tried to do without it now.”

The hollow presence of reform contemplated in a hazy future did not deceive Sir Lucien.  He suppressed a sigh, and changed the topic of conversation.

CHAPTER XXI

THE CIGARETTES FROM BUENOS AYRES

Sir Lucien’s intervention proved successful.  Kazmah’s charges became more modest, and Rita no longer found it necessary to deprive herself of hats and dresses in order to obtain drugs.  But, nevertheless, these were not the halcyon days of old.  She was now surrounded by spies.  It was necessary to resort to all kinds of subterfuge in order to cover her expenditures at the establishment in old Bond Street.  Her husband never questioned her outlay, but on the other hand it was expedient to be armed against the possibility of his doing so, and Rita’s debts were accumulating formidably.

Then there was Margaret Halley to consider.  Rita had never hitherto given her confidence to anyone who was not addicted to the same practices as herself, and she frequently experienced embarrassment beneath the grave scrutiny of Margaret’s watchful eyes.  In another this attitude of gentle disapproval would have been irritating, but Rita loved and admired Margaret, and suffered accordingly.

As for Sir Lucien, she had ceased to understand him.  An impalpable barrier seemed to have arisen between them.  The inner man had became inaccessible.  Her mind was not subtle enough to grasp the real explanation of this change in her old lover.  Being based upon wrong premises, her inferences were necessarily wide of the truth, and she believed that Sir Lucien was jealous of Margaret’s cousin, Quentin Gray.