“Oswyn!” he stammered, “Oswyn!”

“His address!” she demanded quickly.  “Please understand that for the future I am independent; I will go to him at once!  If you won’t give me his address, if——­ Would you prefer that I should ask my brother for it?  That is my alternative!”

Lightmark found something very disconcerting in his wife’s steadfast gaze, in the uncompromising calm, the quiet passion of her demeanour; his one desire was to put an end to this scene, which oppressed him as a nightmare, before he should entirely lose all power of self-control.

He felt himself almost incapable of thought, unable to weigh the meaning of her words, her threats; the readiness of resource which served him so deftly in little things had deserted him now, as it invariably did in the face of a real emergency.

If he could temporize, he might be able to arrive at something more like a plan of action, to concentrate his efforts in one direction.

He realized that if his wife fulfilled her threat, which was the more alarming in that it was not an angry one, but had every appearance of being backed by deliberate intention—­if she appealed to her brother, whose moral principles he estimated more highly than his tact or worldly wisdom—­there appeared to be every prospect of an aggravated scandal.  For if Charles Sylvester (who was unfortunately among the revellers) declined to furnish his sister with Oswyn’s address, was it not certain that she would apply elsewhere?  And, after all, might not Oswyn adhere to the silence which he had so long maintained?

He reasoned quickly and indeterminately, vaguely skimming the surface of many ominous probabilities and finding no hopeful resting-place for conjecture, finally allowing a little desperate gesture to escape him.

The music had stopped amid the desultory clapping of hands, and he could hear people passing outside on their way into the garden.  He turned the handle slowly without opening the door.

“Be reasonable!” he appealed.  “There is still time; let us go into the ballroom; let us forget this folly!”

“You may go,” she replied contemptuously; “I have no wish to detain you—­far from it.  But if you leave me without giving me Mr. Oswyn’s address I shall ask Charles for it, and if Charles——­”

Her husband interrupted her savagely.

“Oh, if you are bent on making a fool of yourself, I suppose I can’t prevent you.  The man lives at 61, Frith Street.  Now you have it.  I wash my hands of the whole affair.”

He opened the door, and she passed out gravely before him, holding her bouquet to her down-turned face; and then they parted tacitly, the husband turning towards the door which led into the garden, the wife making her way into the ball-room, and thence towards the studio.

CHAPTER XXXIV

In the empty studio, from which, for one night, most of her husband’s impedimenta had been removed to allow place for the long supper-table, which glistened faintly in the pale electric light, she paused only long enough to wrap her fantastic person in the dark cloak which she had caught up on her way.