Then she rang for the housemaid, who would in the absence of her half of Amelie have to help her dress, and gave her certain directions.

To-morrow might bring what it would.  That one evening was hers, and she would use it.  Joyselle should see her with his own eyes, as a man sees a woman, not as a father sees a daughter.  And he should see her as a man sees a marvellously beautiful woman!

Satisfied with the conclusion to which she had come, she lay down and slept for an hour, after which, the enigmatic smile on her lips bringing into predominance the resemblance to the portrait in the Luxembourg, she dressed, with more care than she had ever devoted to that process in all her five-and-twenty years of life.

When she arrived at Charles Street and had shaken hands with the Duchess, who had had influenza and looked very old, the first person she saw was Gerald Carron.

“Will you speak to me, Brigit?” he said diffidently, “please do.”

He, too, looked ill, and moistened his lips nervously as he spoke.  She shook hands with him without answering, and he hurried on, “Haven’t I been good?  I knew where you were, and—­I might easily have come——­”

“You would not have had a flattering reception,” she suggested drily.

“Or written.  And I did neither.  I was glad you went, though God knows——­”

“How do you do, Mrs. Talboys,” she cut him short ruthlessly, “when are we to have another book?”

It was a very large dinner, and Brigit, placed between two men who dined out for reasons dietetic and economic, and did not talk, was free to pursue her own thoughts at leisure.  She had wired Theo before leaving the de Lenskys’, that she was leaving for home, and before starting for the dinner she had sent another wire, addressed simply “Joyselle,” to say that she was dining out, but would come to Golden Square after dinner.

She knew that Joyselle, recognising her prompt appearance as an answer to his letter, would be at home late in the evening, no matter where he might have dined.  “He has such strong family feelings,” she reflected, with a menacing curve of her upper lip.

So deeply was she buried in her thoughts that she was amazed to find suddenly that the Duchess was trying to gather her flock’s eye, preparatory to herding it upstairs.  Both her hungry neighbours made spasmodic attempts to eradicate from her mind the memory of their fanatical devotion to the rites of the table, and she smiled absently at them, wondering what they would have thought if she had politely thanked them for their silence!

“My dear,” said the Duchess, a few minutes later, sitting down in her favourite corner by the fire, “come and tell me about Pam.”

“She is well, Duchess.”

“Didn’t she send me any messages?”

“She did.  Much love and some kodaks of the children.  Your god-child is a love.”

“H’m.  And how is the horrid little adopted one?”