Brigit moved away, her upper lip raised disdainfully.  How odious they all were!

And how detestable the whole house with its health of art-treasures, selected by an artist friend of Newlyn’s.

“Nouveau-riche?” asked Joyselle, joining her.

“No.  That is, they are well-born, but they are nouveau as regards money.  Her father made a lucky speculation in electric-lighting, I think it was, after she was married.  They haven’t got used to their money yet.  So,” she added, as they stepped out on to one of the many balconies with which the house was ornamented, “you don’t object to sitting at my table?”

“Brigitte!”

His was of the type of face that is ennobled by any strong passion, and he looked very splendid as he towered above her, white and shaken.

“You will not leave me?” she asked, again possessed by the fear that had tormented her from the moment when he had dropped his violin the evening of the golden frock.

“Brigitte,” he returned, leaning on the rail and presenting a non-committal back to anyone who might chance to join them, “let us not talk of that yet.  I love you, and you are mine, and I am yours, whatever happens.”

An agony of terror took her strength as he spoke.  Uncertainty was always hard for her to bear, but in this vital matter she felt that she could not endure it.

“If you are going to be cruel and leave me,” she said, her face taking on an expression of relentless cruelty, “you must do so at once.”

He turned.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean—­I cannot bear suspense.  If, for any reason, you are going to—­to go—­please go now.”

He was honestly puzzled, for she looked at him as if he had been an enemy.

“My dear—­my beloved—­what do you mean?” His voice was grieved and gentle.  “Surely you can see that——­” he broke off into French, “that the situation is not simple?  That we love we cannot help—­nor would we, by God!—­but in an honest man and an honest woman——­”

“Come along, you two,” cried Mrs. Newlyn, “dinner is announced.  M. Joyselle, go and find Lady Sophy, and you, Brigit, come and be found by your man—­I forget who he is——­”

“Eugene Struther,” she answered quietly, “I am glad, too.”

Struther was one of the best of the young men to be met at the Newlyns, and he and she always got on fairly well.  Their table was squeezed rather tightly into a little balcony looking over the diminutive garden that, although she never went into it, or knew one of its flowers from another, was one of the several joys of the Cassowary’s heart.  So few people have gardens in London.

Lady Sophy Browne, an ethereal-looking woman, with a consciously wan smile and a grey chiffon frock, that looked as if it would have had to be unpinned and unwound, rather than taken off, when bed-time came, put her elbows on the table and clasped her hands under her chin.