She wore the same gown of pale-colored cloth, warmed and softened by rich furs, that she had worn on the day she and Chilcote had driven in the park.

She was drawing on her gloves as she came into the room; and pausing near the door, she looked across at Loder and, laughed in her slow, amused way.

“I thought it would be you,” she said, enigmatically.

Loder came forward.  “You expected me?” he said, guardedly.  A sudden conviction filled him that it was not the evidence of her eyes, but something at once subtler and more definite, that prompted her recognition of him.

She smiled.  “Why should I expect you?  On the contrary, I’m waiting to know why you’re here?”

He was silent for an instant; then he answered in her own light tone.  “As far as that goes,” he said, “let’s make it my duty call-having dined with you.  I’m an old-fashioned person.”

For a full second she surveyed him amusedly; then at last she spoke.  “My dear Jack”—­she laid particular stress on the name—­” I never imagined you punctilious.  I should have thought bohemian would have been more the word.”

Loder felt disconcerted and annoyed.  Either, like himself, she was fishing for information, or she was deliberately playing with him.  In his perplexity he glanced across the room towards the fireplace.

Lillian saw the look.  “Won’t you sit down?” she said, indicating the couch.  “I promise not to make you smoke.  I sha’n’t even ask you to take off your gloves!”

Loder made no movement.  His mind was unpleasantly upset.  It was nearly a fortnight since he had seen Lillian, and in the interval her attitude had changed, and the change puzzled him.  It might mean the philosophy of a woman who, knowing herself without adequate weapons, withdraws from a combat that has proved fruitless; or it might imply the merely catlike desire to toy with a certainty.  He looked quickly at the delicate face, the green eyes somewhat obliquely set, the unreliable mouth; and instantly he inclined to the latter theory.  The conviction that she possessed the telegram filled him suddenly, and with it came the desire to put his belief to the test—­to know beyond question whether her smiling unconcern meant malice or mere entertainment.

“When you first came into the room,” he said, quietly, “you said ‘I thought it would be you.’  Why did you say that?”

Again she smiled—­the smile that might be malicious or might be merely amused.  “Oh,” she answered at last, “I only meant that though I had been told Jack Chilcote wanted me, it wasn’t Jack Chilcote I expected to see!”

After her statement there was a pause.  Loder’s position was difficult.  Instinctively convinced that, strong in the possession of her proof, she was enjoying his tantalized discomfort, he yet craved the actual evidence that should set his suspicions to rest.  Acting upon the desire, he made a new beginning.