“Not nearly so important as losing the woman one loves.”  And looking into her face as he might into a book, written in a language only a few words of which he understood, he continued:  “And the idea seems to have absorbed you, to have made its own of you; it isn’t religion, I don’t think you are a religious woman.  You usen’t to be like this when I took you away to Paris.  You were in love with me, but not half so much in love with me as you are now with this idea, not so subjugated.  Evelyn, that is what it is, you are subjugated, enslaved, and you can think of nothing else.”

“Well, if that is so, Owen—­and I won’t say you are utterly wrong—­ why can’t you accept things as they are?”

“But it isn’t true, Evelyn?  You will outlive this idea.  You will be cured.”

“I hope not.”

“You hope not?  Well, if you don’t wish to be cured it will be difficult to cure you.  But now, here in this house, where everything is different, do you not feel the love of life coming back upon you?  And can you accept negation willingly as your fate?”

Evelyn asked Owen what he meant and he said: 

“Well, your creed is a negative one—­that no man shall ever take you in his arms again, saying, ‘Darling, I am so fond of you!’ You would have me believe that you will be true to this creed?  But don’t I know how dear that moment is to you?  No, you will not always think as you do now; you will wake up as from a nightmare, you will wake up.”

“Do you think I shall?” Soon after their talk drifted to Lady Ascott and to her guests, and Owen narrated the latest intrigues and the mistake Lady Ascott had been guilty of by putting So-and-so and So-and-so to sleep in the same corridor, not knowing that their liaison had been broken off at least three months before.

“Jim is now in love with Constance.”

“How very horrible!”

“Horrible?  It is that fellow Mostyn who has put these ideas into your head!”

“He has put nothing into my head, Owen.”

“Upon my word I believe you’re right.  It is none of his doing.  But he has got the harvesting; ah, yes, and the nuns, too.  You never loved me as you love this idea, Evelyn?”

“Do you think not?”

“When you were studying music in Paris you were quite willing I should go away for a year.”

“But I repaid you for it afterwards; you can’t say I didn’t.  There were ten years in which I loved you.  How is it you have never reproached me before?”

“Why should I?  But now I’ve come to the end of the street; there is a blank wall in front of me.”

“You make me very miserable by talking like this.”

They sat without speaking, and Lady Ascott’s interruption was welcome.

“Now, my dear Sir Owen, will you forgive me if I ask Evelyn to sing for us?  You’d like to hear her sing—­wouldn’t you?”

Owen sprang to his feet.

“Of course, of course.  Come, Miss Innes, you will sing for us.  I have been boring you long enough, haven’t I?  And you’ll be glad to get to the piano.  Who will accompany you?”