She hoped he would find an occasion for passing again in her direction.  If she could have only a word with him it might help to make the situation intelligible.  But he did not return, and presently she noticed, in looking about the room, that he had disappeared.  She, too, was eager to be gone.  Only in solitude could she get control of the surging thoughts, the bewildering suggestions, the contradictory suppositions that crowded it on her.  She saw how useless it was to try to build a theory without at least one positive fact to go on.

It was just as they were departing that her opportunity to ask a question came.  They had said their good-nights to Miss Jarrott and were in the hall, waiting for the footman to call their carriage, when Evie, whom they had not wanted to disturb, came fluttering after them.  She was flushed but radiant, and flung herself into Miriam’s arms.

“You dear thing!  I haven’t had time to say a word to you or Popsey Wayne the entire evening.  But you’ll excuse me, won’t you?  I’ve had to be civil to them all—­do you see?—­and do them up well.  I knew you wouldn’t mind.  I wanted you to have a good time, but I’m afraid you haven’t.”

“Oh yes,” Miriam said, disengaging herself from the girl’s embrace.  “It’s been wonderful—­it really has.  But, Evie dear,” she whispered, drawing her away from the group of ladies who stood cloaked and hooded, also waiting for their carriages, “tell me—­who is that Mr. Strange who sat next to me?”

Evie’s eyes went heavenward, and she took on a look of rapture.

“I hope you liked him.”

“I didn’t have much chance to see.  But why do you hope it?”

“Because—­don’t you see?  Oh, surely you must see—­because—­he’s the one.”

XV

Enlightenment came to her in the carriage while she was driving homeward.  During the five or ten minutes since Evie had spoken she, Miriam, had been sitting still and upright in the darkness, making no further attempt to see reason through this succession of bewilderments from sheer inability to contend against them.  For the time being, at any rate, the struggle was too much for her.  The issues raised by Evie’s overwhelming announcement were so confusing that she must postpone their consideration.  She must postpone everything but her own tumultuous passion, which had to be faced and mastered instantly.  She was fighting with herself, with her own wild inward cries of protest, anger, jealousy, and self-pity, trying to distinguish each from the others and to silence it by appeal to her years of romantic folly, when suddenly Wayne spoke, in the cheery tone of a man who has unexpectedly passed a pleasant evening.

“I had a nice long chat with the Great Unknown, who was sitting beside you, when the ladies left the dining-room.  Who do you think he is?”

After the shocks of the last two hours, she was prepared to hear Wayne tell her, in an offhand way, that it was Norrie Ford.  Nevertheless, she summoned what was left of her stunned faculties and did her best to speak carefully.