“Don’t fret over the newspaper lies, dear.  Those who love you—­and why shouldn’t I love you still?—­know the honourable gentleman that you are.  Write to me if it would ease your heart and tell me just what you feel you can.  Now and always you have my utter sympathy and understanding.”

And this is the woman of whose thousand virtues I dared to speak in flippant jest.

Heaven forgive me.

After receiving Lady Kynnersley’s appeal, I went to Lola.  It was just before the case came on at the Cour d’Assises.  She had finished luncheon in her private room and was sitting over her coffee.  I joined her.  She wore the black blouse and skirt with which I have not yet been able to grow familiar, as it robbed her of the peculiar fascinating quality which I have tried to suggest by the word pantherine.  Coffee over, we moved to the window which opened on a little back garden—­the room was on the ground floor—­in which grew prickly pear and mimosa, and newly flowering heliotrope.  I don’t know why I should mention this, except that some scenes impress themselves, for no particular reason, on the memory, while others associated with more important incidents fade into vagueness.  I picked a bunch of heliotrope which she pinned at her bosom.

“Lola,” I said, “I want to speak to you seriously.”

She smiled wanly:  “Do we ever speak otherwise these dreadful days?”

“It’s about Dale.  Read this,” said I, and I handed her Lady Kynnersley’s letter.  She read it through and returned it to me.

“Well?”

“I asked you a week or two ago what you were going to do with your life,” I said.  “Does that letter offer you any suggestion?”

“I’m to give him some hope—­what hope can I give him?”

“You’re a free woman—­free to marry.  For the boy’s sake the mother will consent.  When she knows you as well as we know you she will—­”

“She will—­what?  Love me?”

“She’s a woman not given to loving—­except, in unexpected bursts, her offspring.  But she will respect you.”

She stood for a few moments silent, her arm resting against the window jamb and her head on her arm.  She remained there so long that at last I rose and, looking at her face, saw that her eyes were full of tears.  She dashed them away with the back of her hand, gave me a swift look, and went and sat in the shadow of the room.  An action of this kind on the part of a woman signifies a desire for solitude.  I lit a cigarette and went into the garden.

It was a sorry business.  I saw as clearly as Lola that Lady Kynnersley desired to purchase Dale’s immediate happiness at any price, and that the future might bring bitter repentance.  But I offered no advice.  I have finished playing at Deputy Providence.  A madman letting off fireworks in a gunpowder factory plays a less dangerous game.

Presently she joined me and ran her arm through mine.

“I’ll write to Dale this afternoon,” she said.  “Don’t let us talk of it any more now.  You are tired out.  It’s time for you to go and lie down.  I’ll walk with you up the hill.”