She slowly extended her fingers.  Her expression and attitude were slightly puzzled—­a puzzlement that was either spontaneous or singularly well assumed.  As their hands touched she smiled again.

“Will you drop in at the ‘Arcadian’ to-night?” she said.  “It’s the dramatized version of ‘Other Men’s Shoes!’ The temptation to make you see it was too irresistible—­as you know.”

There was a pause while she waited for his answer—­her head inclined to one side, her green eyes gleaming.

Loder, conscious of her regard, hesitated for a moment.  Then his face cleared.  “Right!” he said, slowly. “‘The Arcadian’ tonight!”

XXIX

Loder’s frame of mind as he left Cadogan Gardens was peculiar.  Once more he was living in the present—­the forceful, exhilarating present, and the knowledge braced him.  Upon one point his mind was satisfied.  Lillian Astrupp had found the telegram, and it remained to him to render her find valueless.  How he proposed to do this, how he proposed to come out triumphant in face of such a situation, was a matter that as yet was shapeless in his mind; nevertheless, the danger—­the sense of impending conflict—­had a savor of life after the inaction of the day and night just passed.  Chilcote in his weakness and his entanglement had turned to him; and he in his strength and capacity had responded to the appeal.

His step was firm and his bearing assured as he turned into Grosvenor Square and walked towards the familiar house.

The habit of self-deceit is as insidious and tenacious as any vice.  For one moment on the night of his great speech, as he leaned out of Chilcote’s carriage and met Chilcote’s eyes, Loder had seen himself—­and under the shock of revelation had taken decisive action.  But in the hours subsequent to that action the plausible, inner voice had whispered unceasingly, soothing his wounded self-esteem, rebuilding stone by stone the temple of his egotism; until at last when Chilcote, panic-stricken at his own action, had burst into his rooms ready to plead or to coerce, he had found no need for either coercion or entreaty.  By a power more subtle and effective than any at his command, Loder had been prepared for his coming—­unconsciously ready with an acquiescence before his appeal had been made.  It was the fruit of this preparation, the inevitable outcome of it, that strengthened his step and steadied his hand as he mounted the steps and opened the hall door of Chilcote’s house on that eventful afternoon.

The, dignity, the air of quiet solidity, impressed him as it never failed to do, as he crossed the large hall and ascended the stairs—­the same stairs that he had passed down almost as an outcast not so many hours before.  He was filled with the sense of things regained; belief in his own star lifted him as it had done a hundred times before in these same surroundings.