“Oh yes,” he said, hastily—­“yes.”  He wished now that he had questioned Loder more closely on the proceedings of that party.  It seemed to him, on looking back, that Loder had mentioned nothing on the day of their last exchange but the political complications that absorbed his mind.

“I couldn’t explain then,” Lillian went on.  “I couldn’t explain before a crowd of people that it wasn’t your dark head showing over Leonard’s red one that surprised me, but the most wonderful, the most extraordinary likeness—­” She paused.

The car was moving slower; there was a delight in the easy motion through the fresh, early air.  But Chilcote’s uneasiness had been aroused.  He no longer felt soothed.

“What likeness?” he asked, sharply.

She turned to him easily.  “Oh, a likeness I have noticed before,” she said.  “A likeness that always seemed strange, but that suddenly became incredible at Blanche’s party.”

He moved quickly.  “Likenesses are an illusion,” he said, “a mere imagination of the brain!” His manner was short; his annoyance seemingly out of all proportion to its cause.  Lillian looked at him afresh in slightly interested surprise.

“Yet not so very long ago, you yourself—­” she began.

“Nonsense!” he broke in.  “I’ve always denied likenesses.  Such things don’t really exist.  Likeness-seeing is purely an individual matter—­a preconception.”  He spoke fast; he was uneasy under the cool scrutiny of her green eyes.  And with a sharp attempt at self-control and reassurance he altered his voice.  “After all, we’re being very stupid!” he exclaimed.  “We’re worrying over something that doesn’t exist.”

Lillian was still lazily interested.  To her own belief, she had seen Chilcote last on the night of her sister’s reception.  Then she had been too preoccupied to notice either his manner or his health, though superficially it had lingered in her mind that he had seemed unusually reliant, unusually well on that night.  A remembrance of the impression came to her now as she studied his face, upon which imperceptibly and yet relentlessly his vice was setting its mark—­in the dull restlessness of eye, the unhealthy sallowness of skin.

Some shred of her thought, some suggestion of the comparison running through her mind, must have shown in her face, for Chilcote altered his position with a touch of uneasiness.  He glanced away across the long sweep of tan-covered drive stretching between the trees; then he glanced furtively back.

“By-the-way,” he said, quickly, “you wanted me for something?” The memory of her earlier suggestion came as a sudden boon.

She lifted her muff again and smelled her roses thoughtfully.  “Oh, it was nothing, really,” she said.  “You sarcastic people give very shrewd suggestions sometimes, and I’ve been rather wanting a suggestion on an—­an adventure that I’ve had.”  She looked down at her flowers with a charmingly attentive air.