Again a flash of temper crossed her eyes.  “Are you sure,” she said, “that it’s quite wise to talk like that?”

Loder laughed again.  “Is that a threat?”

“Perhaps.”

“Then it’s an empty one.”

“Why?”

Before replying he waited a moment, looking down at her.

“I conclude,” he began, quietly, “that your idea is to spread this wild, improbable story—­to ask people to believe that John Chilcote, whom they see before them, is not John Chilcote, but somebody else.  Now you’ll find that a harder task than you imagine.  This is a sceptical world, and people are absurdly fond of their own eyesight.  We are all journalists nowadays—­we all want facts.  The first thing you will be asked for is your proof.  And what does your proof consist of?  The circumstance that John Chilcote, who has always despised jewelry, has lately taken to wearing rings!  Your own statement, unattended by any witnesses, that with those rings off his finger bears a scar belonging to another man!  No; on close examination I scarcely imagine that your case would hold.”  He stopped, fired by his own logic.  The future might be Chilcote’s but the present was his; and this present—­with its immeasurable possibilities —­had been rescued from catastrophe.  “No,” he said, again.  “When you get your proof perhaps we’ll have another talk; but till then—­”

“Till then?” She looked up quickly; but almost at once her question died away.

The door had opened, and the servant who had admitted Loder stood in the opening.

“Dinner is served!” he announced, in his deferential voice.

XXIII

And Loder dined with Lillian Astrupp.  We live in an age when society expects, even exacts, much.  He dined, not through bravado and not through cowardice, but because it seemed the obvious, the only thing to do.  To him a scene of any description was distasteful; to Lillian it was unknown.  In her world people loved or hated, were spiteful or foolish, were even quixotic or dishonorable, but they seldom made scenes.  Loder tacitly saw and tacitly accepted this.

Possibly they ate extremely little during the course of the dinner, and talked extraordinarily much on subjects that interested neither; but the main point at least was gained.  They dined.  The conventionalities were appeased; the silent, watchful servants who waited on them were given no food for comment.  The fact that Loder left immediately after dinner, the fact that he paused on the door-step after the hall door had closed behind him, and drew a long, deep breath of relief, held only an individual significance and therefore did not count.

On reaching Chilcote’s house he passed at once to the study and dismissed Greening for the night.  But scarcely had he taken advantage of his solitude by settling into an arm-chair and lighting a cigar, than Renwick, displaying an unusual amount of haste and importance, entered the room carrying a letter.