“It’s good of you to wear my ring to-day,” I said.

“To-day?” she echoed, with the tiniest touch of injury in her voice.  “Do you think I put it on to just please you to-day?”

“It would have been gracious of you to do so,” said I.

“It wouldn’t,” she declared.  “It would have been mawkish and sentimental.  When we parted I told you to do what you liked with the ring.  Do you remember?  You put it on this finger”—­she waved her right hand—­“and there it has stayed ever since.”

I caught the hand and touched it lightly with my lips.  She coloured faintly.

“Two lumps of sugar and no milk, I think that’s right?” She handed me the tea-cup.

“It’s like you not to have forgotten.”

“I’m a practical person,” she replied with a laugh.

Presently she said, “Tell me more about your illness—­or rather your recovery.  I know nothing except that you had a successful operation which all the London surgeons said was impossible.  Who nursed you?”

“I had a trained nurse,” said I.

“Wasn’t Madame Brandt with you?”

“Yes,” said I.  “She was very good to me.  In fact, I think I owe her my life.”

Hitherto the delicacy of the situation had caused me to refer to Lola no more than was necessary, and in my narrative I had purposely left her vague.

“That’s a great debt,” said Eleanor.

“It is, indeed.”

“You’re not the man to leave such a debt unpaid?”

“I try to repay it by giving Madame Brandt my devoted friendship.”

Her eyes never wavered as they held mine.

“That’s one of the things I wanted to know.  Tell me something about her.”

I felt some surprise, as Eleanor was of a nature too proud for curiosity.

“Why do you want to know?”

“Because she interests me intensely.  Is she young?”

“About thirty-two.”

“Good-looking?”

“She is a woman of remarkable personality.”

“Describe her.”

I tried, stumbled, and halted.  The effort evoked in my mind a picture of Lola lithe, seductive, exotic, with gold flecks in her dusky, melting eyes, with strong shapely arms that had as yet only held me motherwise, with her pantherine suggestion of tremendous strength in languorous repose, with her lazy gestures and parted lips showing the wonderful white even teeth, with all her fascination and charm—­a picture of Lola such as I had not seen since my emergence from the Valley—­a picture of Lola, generous, tender, wistful, strong, yielding, fragrant, lovable, desirable, amorous—­a picture of Lola which I could not put before this other woman equally brave and straight, who looked at me composedly out of her calm, blue eyes.

My description resolved itself into a loutish catalogue.

“It is not painful to you to talk of her, Simon?”

“Not at all.  There are not many great-hearted women going about.  It is my privilege to know two.”