Suddenly Lois, rushing to the mantelpiece, cried: 

“This is what I shall take.”

It was a large photograph of Jules Defourcambault, bearing the words:  “A Miss Irene Wheeler.  Hommages respectueux de J.D.F.”

“You won’t!” he exclaimed, incredulous, shocked.  He thought:  “She is mad!”

“Yes, I shall.”

There were hundreds of beautiful objects in the place, and she chose a banal photograph of a despicable creature whom she detested.

“Why don’t you take one of her portraits?  Or even a fan.  What on earth do you want with a thing like that?” His voice was changing.

“I shall take it and keep it for ever.  He was the cause of it all.  This photograph was everything to her once.”

George revolted utterly, and said with cold, harsh displeasure: 

“You’re simply being morbid.  There’s no sense in it.”

She dropped down into a chair, and the impress of her body dragged the dust-sheet from its gilt arms, exposing them.  She put her face in her hands and sobbed.

“You’re awfully cruel!” she murmured thickly.

The sobs continued, shaking her body.  She was beautifully dressed.  Her shoes were adorable, and the semi-transparent hose over her fine ankles.  She made a most disturbing, an unbearable, figure of compassion.  She needed wisdom, protection, guidance, strength.  Every bit of her seemed to appeal for these qualities.  But at the same time she dismayed.  He moved nearer to her.  Yes, she had grandeur.  All the costly and valuable objects in the drawing-room she had rejected in favour of the satisfaction of a morbid and terrible whim.  Who could have foreseen it?  He moved still nearer.  He stood over her.  He seized her yielding wrists.  He lifted her veil.  Tears were running down her cheeks from the yellow eyes.  She looked at him through her tears.

“You’re frightfully cruel,” she feebly repeated.

“And what if I am?” he said solemnly.  Did she really think him hard, had she always thought him hard—­she, the hard one?  How strange!  Yet no doubt he was hard.

His paramount idea was: 

“She had faith in me.”  It was as if her faith had created the man he was.  She was passionately ambitious; so was he.

And when he kissed her wet mouth, and stroked with incredible delicacy those streaming cheeks, he felt himself full of foreboding.  But he was proud and confident.

He took her back to Bedford Park.  She carried the photograph, unwrapped; but he ventured no comment.  She went straight up to her room.

“You must tell Mrs. Orgreave,” she said on the stairs.

Adela made a strange remark: 

“Oh!  But we always intended you to marry Lois!”

PART II

CHAPTER I

THE TRIUMPH