Her face glowed at the thought; her eyes shone like stars.  She lost herself in happy introspection.

“Yes—­rotten hard luck, isn’t it?” said a voice somewhere behind her.  “Just when she’s on the crest of the wave, as you might say.  Doubtful if she gets over it, so I hear.”

Christine listened apathetically.  She wondered who the voice was talking about; she half turned; trying to see the speaker, but the palms effectually screened him.

A second, less distinct voice made some remark, and the first speaker answered with a little laugh: 

“Yes—­dead keen, wasn’t he, poor beggar; but he wasn’t rich enough for her.  A woman like that makes diamonds trumps every time, and not hearts, you know—­eh?  Poor old Jimmy—­he always hated Mortlake like the devil. . . .  She was in Mortlake’s car when the smash occurred, you know . . .  No, I don’t much think she’ll marry him.  If she goes on at the rate she’s going now, she’ll be flying for higher game in a month or two.  I know women of that stamp—­had some myself, as you might say. . . .  What—­really! poor old chap!  Thought he only got married the other day.”

The second voice was more audible now: 

“So he did; some little girl from the country, I hear.  God alone knows why he did it. . . .  Anyway, there can’t be any affection in it, because I happen to know that Jimmy was sent for to-night.  They said she asked for him as soon as she could speak. . . .  Jimmy, mark you! not a bob in the world. . . .”  The voice broke in a cynical laugh.

Jimmy!  They were talking of Jimmy—­and——­

All the blood in her body seemed to concentrate suddenly in her heart, and then rush away from it, turning her faint and sick.  The many lights in the big lounge seemed to twinkle and go out.

She pressed her feet hard to the floor; she shut her eyes.

After a moment she felt better; her brain began to work again stiffly.

So Jimmy was with Cynthia, after all.  Jimmy had been sent for, and Jimmy had gone.

This was the end of everything; this was the end of all her dreams of happiness of the future.

She sat there for a long, long time, unconscious of her surroundings; it was only when the band had stopped playing, and a sort of silence fell everywhere, that she moved stiffly and went back up the stairs to her own room.

She stood there by the bed for a moment, looking round her with dull eyes; the clock on the mantel-shelf pointed to nine.

Too late to go away to-night.  Was it too late?  A sudden memory leapt to her mind.

Jimmy and she had gone down to Upton House by a train later than this the day after her mother died.  She tried to remember; it had been the nine-fifty from Euston, she was sure.  She made a rapid calculation; she could catch that if she was quick—­catch it if she hurried.  She threw off her slippers; she began to collect a few things together in a handbag; her breath was coming fast—­her heart was racing.  She would never come back any more—­never live with him again.  She had lost her last shred of trust in him—­she no longer loved him.