A moment afterwards she appeared in the library, serenely matter-of-fact.  Liosha started round in her chair and looked defiantly at her rival.

“Would both of you mind coming into the drawing-room for a minute?”

We followed her.  She held the door, which I was about to shut, and left it open.  Before Jaffery had time to rise at our entrance, I caught sight of him sitting as she had left him, great clumps of his red hair sticking through his fingers.  His face was a picture of woe.  I can imagine nothing more like it than that of a conscience smitten lion.  Doria ran her arm through mine and kept me near the doorway.

“I’ve asked Jaffery to marry me,” she said, in a steady voice, “and he doesn’t want to.  It’s because he loves a much better woman and wants to marry her.”

Then while Jaffery and Liosha gasped in blank astonishment, she swung me abruptly out of the room and slammed the door behind her.

“There,” she said, and flung up her little bead, “what do you think of that?”

“Magnificent,” said I, “but bewildering.  Did Jaffery really—?”

In a few words, she put me into possession of the bare facts.

“I’m not sorry,” she added.  “Sometimes I love Jaffery—­because he’s so lovable.  Sometimes I hate him—­because—­oh, well—­because of Adrian.  You can’t understand.”

“I’m not altogether a fool,” said I.

“Well, that’s how it is.  I would have worn myself to death to try to make him happy.  You believe me?”

“I do indeed, my dear,” I replied.  And I replied with unshakable conviction.  She was a woman who once having come under the domination of an idea would obey it blindly, ruthlessly, marching straight onwards, looking neither to right nor left.  The very virtue that had made her overcruel to him in the past would have made her overkind to him in the future.  Unwittingly she had used a phrase startlingly true.  She would have worn herself to death in her determination to please.  Incidentally she would have driven him mad with conscientious dutifulness.

“He would have found no fault with me that I could help,” she said.  “But we needn’t speak of it any more.  I’m not the woman for him.  Liosha is.  It’s all over.  I’m glad.  At any rate, I’ve made atonement—­at least, I’ve tried—­as far as things lay in my power.”

I took both her hands, greatly moved by her courage.

“And what’s going to happen to you, my dear?”

“Now that all this is straight,” she replied, with a faint smile, “I can turn round and remake my life.  You and Barbara will help.”

“With all our hearts,” said I.

“It won’t be so hard for you, ever again, I promise.  I shall be more reasonable.  And the first favour I’ll ask you, dear Hilary, is to let me go this afternoon.  It would be a bit of a strain on me to stay.”

“I know, my dear,” I said.  “The car is at your service.”