Bottomley, the butler, came out, and began discreetly to adjust chairs and to supervise the carrying away of ashtrays and coffee-cups.

“Come upstairs to my room; I want to speak to you!” Isabelle said, suddenly.  Harriet followed her upstairs, and they entered the beautiful boudoir together.  Here Isabelle dropped into a chair, sitting sidewise, with one bare arm locked across its rococo back, and stared dully ahead of her, a queen of tragedy.  Her silver scarf fluttered free, and the toe of a spangled slipper beat with an angry, steady throb on the floor.

Germaine came forward, evidently more accustomed to this mood than Harriet was.  Like a flash the high-heeled shoes, the silver gown, and the brocaded stays were whisked away, and a cool, loose silk robe enveloped Isabelle, and she took a deep, cretonned chair by the window.  The lights were lowered, Isabelle nodded Harriet to the opposite chair.  Then at last she spoke.

“Can that creature hear?”

Harriet, thrilled, glanced toward the dressing room, and shook her head.

“I ask you,” said Isabelle, with a great breath of anger restrained, “I ask you if any woman in the world could stand it!”

“I knew something was wrong,” Harriet murmured, as the other made a dramatic pause.

“Wrong!” Isabelle echoed, scornfully.  “You saw the way Mr. Carter acted.  You saw him make me ridiculous—­make a fool of me!  The boy will never come to the house again.”

“Oh, I don’t think that!” Harriet said, in honesty.

“Mr. Carter stalked in upon us, at dinner—­” his wife said, broodingly.  She fell into thought, and suddenly burst out, “Harriet, my heart aches for that boy!  My God—­my God—­what have I done to him!”

She rested her white full arms on the dressing table, and covered her face with her hands.  Harriet saw the frail silk of the dressing gown stir with her sudden dry sobbing.

“My God—­if I could cry!” Isabelle said, turning.  And Harriet realized, with a shock, that she was not acting.  “Mr. Carter only sees what I see,” she added, “that it must stop.  But I am afraid it will kill him.  He isn’t like other men.  He—­” She opened a drawer, fumbled therein.  “Read that!” she said.

Harriet took the sheet of paper, pressed it open.

“‘My heart,’” she read, in Tony Pope’s handwriting. “’I will go away from you if I must.  But it will be further than India, Isabelle, further than Rio or Alaska.  While we two live, I must see you sometimes.  Perhaps outside the world there is a place big enough for me to forget you!’”

“Now—!” said Isabelle, rising and beginning restlessly to walk the floor.  “Now, what shall I do?  Send him away to his death, or risk Mr. Carter’s insulting him again, as he did to-night!  Anthony Pope means it, Harriet—­I know him well enough for that.  His whole life is one thought of me.  The flowers, the books, the notes—­he only wakes in the morning to hope for, to plan, a meeting, and the days when we don’t meet are lost days.  You don’t know how I’ve been worrying about it,” said Isabelle, passionately, “I’m sick with worry!”