“They have not destroyed the old ones.  We remember home things out here, all of us.  Stella like the rest.  Why, I thought that I knew her whole life in England, and here’s a definite part of it—­perhaps a very important part—­of which I am utterly ignorant.  She has spoken of many friends to me; of you never.  I am wondering why.”

She spoke obviously without any wish to hurt.  Yet the words did hurt.  She saw Thresk redden as she uttered them, and a swift wild hope flamed like a rose in her heart:  if this man with the brains and the money and the perseverance sitting at her side should turn out to be the Perseus for her beautiful chained Andromeda, far away there in the state of Chitipur!  The lines of a poem came into her thoughts.

“I know; the world proscribes not love,
Allows my finger to caress
Your lips’ contour and downiness
Provided it supplies the glove.”

Suppose that here at her side was the man who would dispense with the glove!  She looked again at Thresk.  The lean strong face suggested that he might, if he wanted hard enough.  All her life had been passed in the support of authority and law.  Authority—­that was her husband’s profession.  But just for this hour, as she thought of Stella Ballantyne, lawlessness shone out to her desirable as a star.

“No, she has never once mentioned your name, Mr. Thresk.”

Again Thresk was conscious of the little pulse of resentment beating at his heart.

“She has no doubt forgotten me.”

Mrs. Repton shook her head.

“That’s one explanation.  There might be another.”

“What is it?”

“That she remembers you too much.”

Mrs. Repton was a little startled by her own audacity, but it provoked nothing but an incredulous laugh from her companion.

“I am afraid that’s not very likely,” he said.  There was no hint of elation in his voice nor any annoyance.  If he felt either, why, he was on guard no less than she.  Mrs. Repton was inclined to throw up her hands in despair.  She was baffled and she was little likely, as she knew, to get any light.

“If you take the man you know best of all,” she used to say, “you still know nothing at all of what he’s like when he’s alone with a woman, especially if it’s a woman for whom he cares—­unless the woman talks.”

Very often the woman does talk and the most intimate and private facts come in a little while to be shouted from the housetops.  But Stella Ballantyne did not talk.  She had talked once, and once only, under a great stress to Jane Repton; but even then Thresk had nothing to do with her story at all.

Thresk turned quickly towards her.

“In a moment Mrs. Carruthers will get up.  Her eyes are collecting the women and the women are collecting their shoes.  What have you to tell me?”

Mrs. Repton wanted to speak.  Thresk gave her confidence.  He seemed to be a man without many illusions, he was no romantic sentimentalist.  She went back to the poem of which the lines had been chasing one another through her head all through this dinner, as a sort of accompaniment to their conversation.  Had he found it out? she asked herself—­