would like nothing better?) And he heard the West End of London and all the country-houses saying, “She obeys him like a slave.”  He conceived a new and dazzling environment for himself; and it was undeniable that he needed something of the kind, for he was growing lonely; before the war he had lived intensely in his younger friends, but the war had taken nearly all of them away from him, many of them for ever.

Then he said in a voice almost resentfully satiric, and wondered why such a tone should come from his lips: 

“Another of her caprices, no doubt.”

“What do you mean—­another of her caprices?” said Concepcion, straightening herself and leaning against the mantelpiece.

He had noticed, only a moment earlier, on the mantelpiece, a large photograph of the handsome Molder, with some writing under it.

“Well, what about that, for example?”

He pointed.  Concepcion glanced at him for the first time, and her eyes followed the direction of his finger.

“That!  I don’t know anything about it.”

“Do you mean to say that while you were gossiping till five o’clock this morning, you two, she didn’t mention it?”

“She didn’t.”

G.J. went right on, murmuring: 

“Wants to do something unusual.  Wants to astonish the town.”

“No!  No!”

“Then you seriously tell me she’s fallen in love with me, Con?”

“I haven’t the slightest doubt of it.”

“Did she say so?”

There was a sound outside the door.  They both started like plotters in danger, and tried to look as if they had been discussing the weather or the war.  But no interruption occurred.

“Well, she did.  I know I shall be thought mischievous.  If she had the faintest notion I’d breathed the least hint to you, she’d quarrel with me eternally—­of course.  I couldn’t bear another quarrel.  If it had been anybody else but you I wouldn’t have said a word.  But you’re different from anybody else.  And I couldn’t help it.  You don’t know what Queen is.  Queen’s a white woman.”

“So you said this afternoon.”

“And so she is.  She has the most curious and interesting brain, and she’s as straight as a man.”

“I’ve never noticed it.”

“But I know.  I know.  And she’s an exquisite companion.”

“And so on and so on.  And I expect the scheme is that I am to make love to her and be worried out of my life, and then propose to her and she’ll accept me.”  The word “scheme” brought up again his suspicion of a conspiracy.  Evidently there was no conspiracy, but there was a plot—­of one....  A nervous breakdown?  Was Concepcion merely under an illusion that she had had a nervous breakdown, or had she in truth had one, and was this singular interview a result of it?

Concepcion continued with surprising calm magnanimity: 

“I know her mind is strange, but it’s lovely.  No one but me has ever seen into it.  She’s following her instinct, unconsciously—­as we all do, you know.  And her instinct’s right, in spite of everything.  Her instinct’s telling her just now that she needs a master.  And that’s exactly what she does need.  We must remember she’s very young—­”