“Then let me hear no more of this impudent nonsense,” Jasmine said, with decision.

“Oh, madame, to speak to me like this!” Tears were ready to do needful service.

“Do you wish to remain with me, Lablanche?”

“Ah, madame, but yes—­”

“Then my head aches, and I don’t want you to make it worse....  And, see, Lablanche, there is that grey walking-suit; also the mauve dressing-gown, made by Loison; take them, if you can make them fit you; and be good.”

“Madame, how kind—­ah, no one is like you, madame—!”

“Well, we shall see about that quite soon.  Put out at once every gown of mine for me to see, and have trunks ready to pack immediately; but only three trunks, not more.”

“Madame is going away?”

“Do as I say, Lablanche.  We go to-night.  The grey gown and the mauve dressing-gown that Loison made, you will look well in them.  Quick, now, please.”

In a flutter Lablanche left the room, her eyes gleaming.

She had had her mind on the grey suit for some time, but the mauve dressing-gown as well—­it was too good to be true.

She almost ran into Lady Tynemouth’s arms as the door opened.  With a swift apology she sped away, after closing the door upon the visitor.

Jasmine rose and embraced her friend, and Lady Tynemouth subsided into a chair with a sigh.

“My dear Jasmine, you look so frail,” she said.  “A short time ago I feared you were going to blossom into too ripe fruit, now you look almost a little pinched.  But it quite becomes you, mignonne—­quite.  You have dark lines under your eyes, and that transparency of skin—­ it is quite too fetching.  Are you glad to see me?”

“I would have seen no one to-day, no one, except you or Rudyard.”

“Love and duty,” said Lady Tynemouth, laughing, yet acutely alive to the something so terribly wrong, of which she had spoken to Ian Stafford.

“Why is it my duty to see you, Alice?” asked Jasmine, with the dry glint in her tone which had made her conversation so pleasing to men.

“You clever girl, how you turn the tables on me,” her friend replied, and then, seeing the sjambok on the table, took it up.  “What is this formidable instrument?  Are you flagellating the saints?”

“Not the saints, Alice.”

“You don’t mean to say you are going to scourge yourself?”

Then they both smiled—­and both immediately sighed.  Lady Tynemouth’s sympathy was deeply roused for Jasmine, and she meant to try and win her confidence and to help her in her trouble, if she could; but she was full of something else at this particular moment, and she was not completely conscious of the agony before her.

“Have you been using this sjambok on Mennaval?” she asked with an attempt at lightness.  “I saw him leaving as I came in.  He looked rather dejected—­or stormy, I don’t quite know which.”

“Does it matter which?  I didn’t see Mennaval today.”