He set down his glass, and his fingers trifled for a moment with its stem.  His expression was inscrutable.

“Surely,” he said, “you are not serious!”

“I am serious,” she declared, “and you know that I am.”

“You are afraid of me,” he repeated softly.  “I wonder why.”

She looked him straight in the eyes.

“Because,” she said, “I did you once a very grievous wrong.  Because I know that you have not forgiven me.  Because I am very sure that all the good that was in you lies slain.”

“By whose hand?” he asked quietly.  “No!  You need not answer.  You know.  So do I. Yes, I can understand your fear.  But I do not understand why you confess it to me.”

“Nor I,” she answered.  “Nor do I understand why I am here—­at your bidding, nor why I keep you always by my side whenever you choose to take your place there.  Are you a vain man, Wingrave?  Do you wish to pose as the friend of a woman whom the world has thought too ambitious to waste time upon such follies?  There is the Marchioness!  She would do you more credit still.”

“Thank you,” he answered.  “I like to choose the path myself when I pass into the maze of follies!”

“You have not yet explained yourself,” she reminded him.  “Of all people in world, you have chosen us for your presumptive friends.  Why?  You hate us both.  You know that you do.  Is it part of a scheme?  Lumley is investing money on your advice, I am allowing myself to be seen about with you more than is prudent—­considering all things.  Do you want to rake out the ashes of our domestic hearth—­to play the part of—­melodramatic villain?  You are ingenious enough, and powerful enough.”

“You put strange ideas into my head,” he told her lightly.  “Why should I not play the part that you suggest?  It might be amusing, and you certainly deserve all the evil which I could bring upon you.”

She leaned a little across the table towards him.  Her eyes were soft and bright, and they looked full into his.  The color in her cheeks was natural.  The air around him was faintly fragrant with the perfume of her clothes and hair.

“We couldn’t leave off playing at the game—­and act it, could we?” she murmured.  “We couldn’t really—­be friends?”

Lady Ruth had played her trump card.  She had touched his fingers with hers, her eyes shone with the promise of unutterable things.  But if Wingrave was moved, he did not show it.

“I wish,” he said, “that I could accept your offer in the spirit with which you tender it.  Unfortunately, I am a maimed person.  My sensibilities have gone.  Friendship, in the more intimate sense of the word, I may never hope to feel again.  Enmity—­well, that is more comprehensible; even enmity,” he continued slowly, “which might prompt a woman to disguise herself as her own lady’s maid, to seek out a tool to get rid of the man she feared.  Pardon me, Lady Ruth, you are eating nothing.”