He would have departed with the words, but Noel detained him.  “I say, Nick!  I’ve been wanting a word with you all day, but couldn’t get it in.  If I lived where you do, I should keep a pretty sharp look-out.  I caught an old brute of a moonstone-seller (at least that’s what he called himself) prowling about your place only last night, and kicked him off the premises.”

Nick stood still.  His eyes flickered very rapidly as he faced Noel in the dimness.  “Awfully obliged to you, my son,” he said, and in his cracked voice there sounded a desire to laugh.  “But that poor old seller of moonstones happens to be a very particular friend of mine.  You needn’t kick him again.”

“What?” said Noel.  “That mangy old cur a friend of yours?”

“He isn’t mangy,” said Nick.  “And he’s been very useful to me in one way and another; will be again, I daresay.”

“My dear chap,” Noel protested, “you don’t mean to say you trust those people?  You shouldn’t really.  It’s madness.  They are treachery incarnate, one and all.”

Nick laughed flippantly.  “Even treachery is a useful quality sometimes,” he declared, as he turned to go.  “Don’t you worry yourself, my boy.  I can walk on cat’s ice as well as anyone I know.”

He was gone, humming his favourite waltz as he departed; and Noel turned back to his partner with a grunt of discontent.

“He’ll play that game once too often if he isn’t careful,” he said.

“Is there really any danger?” Olga asked.

“I should say so,” he answered, “but it seems I am of no account.”

“Oh, he didn’t mean that,” she said quickly.

He looked at her.  “He is not the only person who thinks so, Olga.”

She slipped a friendly hand on to his arm.  “Noel,” she said, “you don’t think I think so, do you?”

He laid his hand on hers and pressed it silently.  They stood together in the semi-darkness, isolated for the moment, very intimately alone.

“Noel,” Olga whispered at length, a tremor of distress in the words, “you mustn’t think that; please—­please, you must never think that!”

He moved a little, stooped to her.  “Olga,” he said, speaking quickly, “I’m not blaming you.  You couldn’t help it.  It’s just my damned luck.  But—­if I’d met you—­first—­I’d have won you!”

The words came hot and passionate.  His hand gripped hers with unconscious force.  She made no attempt to free herself.  Neither did she contradict him, for she knew that he spoke the truth.

Only, after a moment, she said, looking up at him, “I’m so dreadfully sorry.”

“You couldn’t help it,” he reiterated almost savagely.  “Anyhow you’re happy; so I ought to be satisfied.  I should be too, if I didn’t have a sort of feeling that you’d have been happier with me.  P’raps I’m a cad to tell you, but it’s hit me rather hard.”

He broke off, breathing heavily.  She drew nearer to him, stroking his shoulder softly with her free hand.  “Dear Noel, I love you for telling me,” she said.  “I feel dreadfully unworthy of your love.  But I’m very, very grateful for it.  You know that, don’t you?  And I—­I’d marry you if my heart would let me, but,—­dear, it won’t.”