“I am so surprised,” she said softly—­but his dark eyes noted that she was still busy with her tea paraphernalia—­“I scarcely know what to think, Mr. Querida—­”

“Think that I love you—­” breathed Querida, his dark and beautiful head very near to her blond one.

“I—­am—­thinking of it....  But—­”

“Helene,” he whispered musically;—­and suddenly stiffened in his chair as the maid came clattering in over the rugless and polished parquet to announce Mr. Ogilvy, followed san facon by that young man, swinging a straw hat and a malacca stick.

“Sam!” said the pretty Countess, changing countenance.

“Hello, Helene!  How-do, Querida!  I heard you were temporarily in town, dear lady—­” He kissed a hand that was as faltering and guilty as the irresolute eyes she lifted to his.

Ten minutes later Querida took his leave.  He dismissed the expensive taxi which had been devouring time outside, and walked thoughtfully away down the fashionable street.

Because the machinery had chanced to clog twice did not disturb his theory; but the trouble with him was local; he was intensely and personally annoyed, nervous, irritated unspeakably.  Because, except for Valerie, these two, Alma Hind-Willet and Helene d’Enver, were the only two socially and financially suitable women in whom he took the slightest physical interest.

There is, in all women, one moment—­sometimes repeated—­in which a sudden yielding to caprice sometimes overturns the logical plans laid out and inexorably followed for half a lifetime.  And there was much of the feminine about Querida.

And it chanced to happen on this day—­when no doubt all unsuspected and unperceived some lurking jettatura had given him the evil eye—­that he passed by hazard through the block where Valerie lived, and saw her mounting the steps.

“Why, Jose!” she exclaimed, a trifle confused in her smiling cordiality as he sprang up the steps behind her—­for Rita’s bitterness, if it had not aroused in her suspicions, had troubled her in spite of her declaration of unbelief.

He asked for a cup of tea, and she invited him.  Rita was in the room when they entered; and she stood up coolly, coolly returned Querida’s steady glance and salutation with a glance as calm, as detached, and as intelligent as a surgeon’s.

Neither he nor she referred to his recent call; he was perfectly self-possessed, entirely amiable with that serene and level good-humour which sometimes masks a defiance almost contemptuous.

But Rita’s engagements required her to leave very shortly after his advent; and before she went out she deliberately waited to catch Valerie’s eye; and Valerie coloured deeply under her silent message.

Then Rita went away with a scarcely perceptible nod to Querida; and when, by the clock, she had been gone twenty minutes, Querida, without reason, without preparation, and perfectly aware of his moment’s insanity, yielded to a second’s flash of caprice—­the second that comes once in the lives of all women—­and now, in the ordered symmetry of his life, had come to him.