Dartrey came to her room by appointment.  She wanted to see him alone, and he informed her, that Mrs. Blathenoy was in the hotel, and would certainly receive and amuse Nesta for any length of time.

‘I will take her up,’ said Nataly, and rose, and she sat immediately, and fluttered a hand at her breast.  She laughed:  ‘Perhaps I’m tired!’

Dartrey took Nesta.

He returned, saying:  ’There’s a lift in the hotel.  Do the stairs affect you at all?’

She fenced his sharp look.  ’Laziness, I fancy; age is coming on.  How is it Mrs. Blathenoy is here?’

‘Well! how?’ ‘Foolish curiosity?’ ’I think I have made her of service.  I did not bring the lady here.’  ‘Of service to whom?’ ‘Why, to Victor!’ ‘Has Victor commissioned you?’ ’You can bear to hear it.  Her husband knows the story.  He has a grudge . . . commercial reasons.  I fancy it is, that Victor stood against his paper at the table of the Bank.  Blathenoy vowed blow for blow.  But I think the little woman holds him in.  She says she does.’  ‘Victor prompted you?’ ‘It occurred as it occurred.’  ‘She does it for love of us?—­Oh!  I can’t trifle.  Dartrey!’ ‘Tell me.’  ‘First, you haven’t let me know what you think of my Nesta.’  ’She’s a dear good girl.’  ‘Not so interesting to you as a flighty little woman!’ ‘She has a speck of some sort on her mind.’  Nataly spied at Dudley’s behaviour, and said:  ‘That will wear away.  Is Mr. Blathenoy much here?’ ‘As often as he can come, I believe.’  ‘That is . . . ?’ ’I have seen him twice.’  ‘His wife remains?’ ‘Fixed here for the season.’  ‘My friend!’ ’No harm, no harm!’ ‘But-to her!’ ‘You have my word of honour.’  ’Yes:  and she is doing you a service, at your request; you occasionally reward her with thanks; and she sees you are a man of honour.  Do you not know women?’

Dartrey blew his pooh-pooh on feminine suspicions.  ’There’s very little left of the Don Amoroso in me.  Women don’t worship stone figures.’

’They do:  like the sea-birds.  And what do you say to me, Dartrey?—­I can confess it:  I am one of them:  I love you.  When last you left England, I kissed your hand.  It was because of your manly heart in that stone figure.  I kept from crying:  you used to scorn us English for the “whimpering fits” you said we enjoy and must have in books, if we can’t get them up for ourselves.  I could have prayed to have you as brother or son.  I love my Victor the better for his love of you.  Oh!—­poor soul—­how he is perverted since that building of Lakelands!  He cannot take soundings of the things he does.  Formerly he confided in me, in all things:  now not one;—­I am the chief person to deceive.  If only he had waited!  We are in a network of intrigues and schemes, every artifice in London—­tempting one to hate simple worthy people, who naturally have their views, and see me an impostor, and tolerate me, fascinated by him:—­or bribed—­it has to be said.  There are ways of bribeing.  I trust