She got up and went with Mrs. Clarke into one of the drawing-rooms.  Dion
Leith was not mentioned again.

That evening the Ingletons dined alone.  Sir Carey said he must insist on a short honeymoon even though they were obliged to spend it in an Embassy.  They had dinner in Bohemian fashion on a small round table in Lady Ingleton’s boudoir, and were waited upon by Sir Carey’s valet, a middle-aged Italian who had been for many years in his service and who had succeeded, in the way of Italian servants, in becoming one of the family.  The Pekinese lay around solaced by the arrival of their mistress and of their doyenne.

When dinner was over and Sir Carey had lit his cigar, he breathed a sigh of contentment.

“At last I’m happy once more after all those months of solitude!”

He looked across at his wife, and added: 

“But are you happy at being with me again?”

She smiled.

“Yes,” he said, “I know, of course.”

“Then why do you ask?”

“Well, I’m a trained observer, like every competent diplomatist, and—­there’s something.  I see in the lute of your happiness a tiny rift.  It’s scarcely visible, but—­I see it.”

“I’m not quite happy to-night.”

“And you won’t tell me why, on our honeymoon?”

“I want to tell you but I can’t.  I have no right to tell you.”

“You only can judge of that.”

“I’ve done something that even you might think abominable, something treacherous.  I had a great reason—­but still!” She sighed.  “I shall never be able to tell you what it is, because to do that would increase my sin.  To-night I’m realizing that I’m not at all sorry for what I have done.  And that not being sorry—­as well as something else—­makes me unhappy in a new way.  It’s all very complicated.”

“Like Balkan politics!  Shall we”—­he looked round the room meditatively—­“shall we set the dogs at it?”

She smiled.

“Even they couldn’t drive my tristesse quite away.  You have more power with me than many dogs.  Read me something.  Read me ‘Rabbi ben Ezra.’”

Sir Carey went to fetch the exorcizer.

The truth was that Lady Ingleton’s interview with Cynthia Clarke had made her realize two things:  that since she had come to know Father Robertson, and had betrayed to him the secret of her friend’s life, any genuine feeling of liking she had had for Cynthia Clarke had died; and that Cynthia Clarke was tired of Dion Leith.

That day Mrs. Clarke’s hypocrisy had, perhaps, for the first time, absolutely disgusted, and even almost horrified, Lady Ingleton.  For years Lady Ingleton had known of it, but for years she had almost admired it.  The cleverness, the subtlety, the competence of it had entertained her mind.  She had respected, too, the courage which never failed Mrs. Clarke.  But she was beginning to see her with new eyes.  Perhaps Father Robertson had given his impulsive visitor a new moral vision.