Carron caught his breath.  She was actually talking civilly to him.  And, then, remembering his request to her mother, he, for a second, hated Lady Kingsmead with a bitter and senseless hatred.  Was Brigit, after all, only talking to him as a favour to her mother?  But a second’s reflection showed him the folly of this idea.  Had Brigit ever done anything to please her mother?  Never.

One of the two women-guests sat down at the piano and began to play, very softly, an old song of Tosti’s.  Everybody listened.  A hansom jingled by and a bicycle’s sharp bell was a loud noise in the after-dinner silence.

Joyselle was standing by a table, absently balancing on his forefinger a long, broad, ivory paper-knife.  He was, Brigit remembered, curiously adept in balancing, and once she had seen him go through, for Tommy’s amusement, a whole series of the kind, from the classic broomstick on his chin, to blowing three feathers about the room at a time, allowing none of them to fall.  How quickly he had moved, in spite of his great height, and how Tommy had laughed.  But, for the past week, something had gone wrong with the violinist.  He had been away from the house one day when she went, and that afternoon, when she “dropped in” on her way from the station, he had hardly spoken.  In his silence he seemed immeasurably far from her, and she would have given worlds to read his thoughts.

During dinner he had been conventionally polite, but playing a role was so foreign to him that even this laudable one of pretending to be amused when he was bored sat gloomily and guiltily on him.

Carron sat by her for twenty minutes, but her eyes were fixed on Joyselle, and her whole mind groping in the darkness for his.

There was a ball that night, so the party broke up early, but Joyselle stayed, absently, as if he did not notice that the others were going.  He sat on a sofa and smoked cigarettes rapidly, rolling them himself, with quick, nervous movements, and throwing them into a silver bowl before they were half-burnt.

Lady Kingsmead tried to talk to him, but finding that, though he answered her politely enough, his thoughts were elsewhere, gave him up and took up a book, casting an impatient look at her daughter.

Carron had gone early, too restless to stay quiet, and afraid to rouse Brigit out of her curious lethargic state.

For a long time the three people sat in silence, and then Lady Kingsmead rose.  “I think I’ll go upstairs,” she said, “but if you two enjoy sitting as mute as fish, there is no reason why you shouldn’t continue to do so.  Good-night, Joyselle.”

He rose and kissed her hands, and a moment later he and Brigit were alone.  It was the first time it had happened, for weeks, the girl realised suddenly.

He stood where Lady Kingsmead had left him, the light falling directly on his head in a way that showed up very plainly the curious halo-like effect caused by the silver greyness of the hair about his brow.