“It is pinned on to my hat,” she told him.

“Then off with both,” he insisted.  “You can’t eat luncheon like that.  I’m not going to try and bully you.  If you’ve booked your passage to Timbuctoo and you really want to go—­why, you must.  I only want the chance of letting you know that I am coming after you.”

She took off her hat and veil and threw them on to the sofa, glancing sideways at a mirror let into the door of a cabinet.

“My hair is awful,” she declared: 

He laughed gaily, and turned around from the sideboard, where he was busy mixing cocktails.

“Thank heavens for that touch of humanity!” he exclaimed.  “A woman who can bother about her hair when she takes her hat off, is never past praying for.  Please drink this.”

She obeyed.  He took the empty glass away from her.  Then he came over to the hearthrug by her side.

“Do you know that I kissed you last night?” he reminded her.

“I do,” she answered.  “That is why I have just paid eighty-four pounds for a passage to Buenos Ayres.”

“I should have enjoyed the trip,” he said.  “Still, I’m glad I haven’t to go.”

“Do you really mean that you would have come after me?” she asked curiously.

“Of course I should,” he assured her.  “Believe me, there isn’t such an obstinate person in the world as the man of early middle-age who suddenly discovers the woman he means to marry.”

“But you can’t marry me,” she protested.

“Why not?” he asked.

“Because I was Oliver Hilditch’s wife, for one thing.”

“Look here,” he said, “if you had been Beelzebub’s wife, it wouldn’t make the least difference to me.  You haven’t given me much of a chance to tell you so yet, Margaret, but I love you.”

She sat a little forward in her chair.  Her eyes were fixed upon his wonderingly.

“But how can you?” she exclaimed.  “You know, nothing of me except my associations, and they have been horrible.  What is there to love in me?  I am a frozen-up woman.  Everything is dead here,” she went on, clasping her hand to her heart.  “I have no sentiment, no passion, nothing but an animal desire to live my life luxuriously and quickly.”

He smiled confidently.  Then, with very little warning, he sank on one knee, drew her face to his, kissed her lips and then her eyes.

“Are you so sure of all these things, Margaret?” he whispered.  “Don’t you think it is, perhaps, because there has been no one to care for you as I do—­as I shall—­to the end of my days?  The lily you left on your chair last night was like you—­fair and stately and beautiful, but a little bruised.  You will come back as it has done, come back to the world.  My love will bring you.  My care.  Believe it, please!”

Then he saw the first signs of change in her face.  There was the faintest shade of almost shell-like pink underneath the creamy-white of her cheeks.  Her lips were trembling a little, her eyes were misty.  With a sudden passionate little impulse, her arms were around his neck, her lips sought his of their own accord.