When Grayson still hesitated he made a move toward the staircase, and the elderly servant, astounded at the speech and the movement, put down the hat and faced him.

“I do not recognize any one in the household by that name, sir.”

“You don’t, don’t you?  Very well.  Tell Miss Cardew I am here, and that either she will come down or I’ll go up.  I’ll wait in the library.”

He watched Grayson start up the stairs, and then went into the library.  He was very carefully dressed, and momentarily exultant over the success of his ruse, but he was uneasy, too, and wary, and inclined to regard the house as a possible trap.  He had made a gambler’s venture, risking everything on the cards he held, and without much confidence in them.  His vanity declined to believe that his old power over Lily was gone, but he had held a purely physical dominance over so many women that he knew both his strength and his limitations.

What he could not understand, what had kept him awake so many nights since he had seen her, was her recoil from him on Willy Cameron’s announcement.  She had known he had led the life of his sort; he had never played the plaster saint to her.  And she had accepted her knowledge of his connection with the Red movement, on his mere promise to reform.  But this other, this accident, and she had turned from him with a horror that made him furious to remember.  These silly star-eyed virgins, who accepted careful abstractions and then turned sick at life itself, a man was a fool to put himself in their hands.

Mademoiselle was with Lily in her boudoir when Grayson came up, a thin, tired-faced, suddenly old Mademoiselle, much given those days to early masses, during which she prayed for eternal life for the man who had ruined Lily’s life, and that soon.  To Mademoiselle marriage was a final thing and divorce a wickedness against God and His establishment on earth.

Lily, rather like Willy Cameron, was finding on her spirit at that time a burden similar to his, of keeping up the morale of the household.

Grayson came in and closed the door behind him.  Anger and anxiety were in his worn old face, and Lily got up quickly.  “What is it, Grayson?”

“I’m sorry, Miss Lily.  He was in the vestibule behind Mrs. Denslow, and I couldn’t keep him out.  I think he had waited for some one to call, knowing I couldn’t make a scene.”

Mademoiselle turned to Lily.

“You must not see him,” she said in rapid French.  “Remain here, and I shall telephone for your father.  Lock your door.  He may come up.  He will do anything, that man.”

“I am going down,” Lily said quietly.  “I owe him that.  You need not be frightened.  And don’t tell mother; it will only worry her and do no good.”

Her heart was beating fast as she went down the stairs.  From the drawing room came the voices of Grace and Mrs. Denslow, chatting amiably.  The second man was carrying in tea, the old silver service gleaming.  Over all the lower floor was an air of peace and comfort, the passionless atmosphere of daily life running in old and easy grooves.