“Well, he certainly was most attentive to that pretty Miss Billeton.  You remember her father was lost overboard four years ago from his yacht.  Mr. Coates told me he met her only a day or so ago; she had come down to look after the new ball-room they are adding to the old house.  You know her, don’t you?”

“No—­never heard of her.  How old is she?” rejoined Lucy in a careless tone.

“I should say twenty, maybe twenty-two—­you can’t always tell about these girls; very pretty and very rich.  I am quite sure I saw Mr. Feilding driving with her just before he moved his horses down here, and she looked prettier than ever.  But then he has a new flame every month, I hear.”

“Where were they driving?” There was a slight tone of curiosity in Lucy’s voice.  None of Max’s love-affairs ever affected her, of course, except as they made for his happiness; all undue interest, therefore, was out of place, especially before Mrs. Coates.

“I don’t remember.  Along the River Road, perhaps —­he generally drives there when he has a pretty woman with him.”

Lucy bit her lip.  Some other friend, then, had been promised the drag with the red body and yellow wheels!  This was why he couldn’t come to Yardley when she wrote for him.  She had found the button.  It rang up another woman.

The door between the connecting sitting-rooms was not opened that day, nor that night, for that matter.  Lucy pleaded a headache and wished to be alone.  She really wanted to look the field over and see where her line of battle was weak.  Not that she really cared—­unless the girl should upset her plans; not as Jane would have cared had Doctor John been guilty of such infidelity.  The eclipse was what hurt her.  She had held the centre of the stage with the lime-light full upon her all her life, and she intended to retain it against Miss Billeton or Miss Anybody else.  She decided to let Max know at once, and in plain terms, giving him to understand that she didn’t intend to be made a fool of, reminding him at the same time that there were plenty of others who cared for her, or who would care for her if she should but raise her little finger.  She would raise it, too, even if she packed her trunks and started for Paris—­and took him with her.

These thoughts rushed through her mind as she sat by the window and looked out over the sea.  The tide was making flood, and the fishing-boats anchored in the inlet were pointing seaward.  She could see, too, the bathers below and the children digging in the sand.  Now and then a boat would head for the inlet, drop its sail, and swing round motionless with the others.  Then a speck would break away from the anchored craft and with the movement of a water-spider land the fishermen ashore.

None of these things interested her.  She could not have told whether the sun shone or whether the sky was fair or dull.  Neither was she lonely, nor did she miss Max.  She was simply angry—­disgusted—­ disappointed at the situation; at herself, at the woman who had come between them, at the threatened failure of her plans.  One moment she was building up a house of cards in which she held all the trumps, and the next instant she had tumbled it to the ground.  One thing she was determined upon —­not to take second place.  She would have all of him or none of him.