Ann had retreated to the door, and was looking at him with wide eyes.  With other young men and there had been many—­who had said much the same sort of thing to her since her debutante days she had been cool and composed—­a little sorry, perhaps, but in no doubt as to her own feelings and her ability to resist their pleadings.  But now her heart was racing, and the conviction had begun to steal over her that the cool and composed Ann Chester was in imminent danger of making a fool of herself.  Quite suddenly, without any sort of warning, she realised that there was some quality in Jimmy which called aloud to some corresponding quality in herself—­a nebulous something that made her know that he and she were mates.  She knew herself hard to please where men were concerned.  She could not have described what it was in her that all the men she had met, the men with whom she had golfed and ridden and yachted, had failed to satisfy:  but, ever since she had acquired the power of self-analysis, she had known that it was something which was a solid and indestructible part of her composition.  She could not have put into words what quality she demanded in man, but she had always known that she would recognise it when she found it:  and she recognised it now in Jimmy.  It was a recklessness, an irresponsibility, a cheerful dare-devilry, the complement to her own gay lawlessness.

“Ann!” said Jimmy.

“It’s too late!”

She had not meant to say that.  She had meant to say that it was impossible, out of the question.  But her heart was running away with her, goaded on by the irony of it all.  A veil seemed to have fallen from before her eyes, and she knew now why she had been drawn to Jimmy from the very first.  They were mates, and she had thrown away her happiness.

“I’ve promised to marry Lord Wisbeach!”

Jimmy stopped dead, as if the blow had been a physical one.

“You’ve promised to marry Lord Wisbeach!”

“Yes.”

“But—­but when?”

“Just now.  Only a few minutes ago.  When I was driving him to his hotel.  He had asked me to marry him before I left for England, and I had promised to give him his answer when I got back.  But when I got back, somehow I couldn’t make up my mind.  The days slipped by.  Something seemed to be holding me back.  He pressed me to say that I would marry him, and it seemed absurd to go on refusing to be definite, so I said I would.”

“You can’t love him?  Surely you don’t—?”

Ann met his gaze frankly.

“Something seems to have happened to me in the last few minutes,” she said, “and I can’t think clearly.  A little while ago it didn’t seem to matter much.  I liked him.  He was good-looking and good-tempered.  I felt that we should get along quite well and be as happy as most people are.  That seemed as near perfection as one could expect to get nowadays, so—­well, that’s how it was.”

“But you can’t marry him!  It’s out of the question!”