Her sister's dressing-hour confidences seemed to Aliette the final complication. Mollie had met James Wilberforce, by accident, in Bond Street. Although too late for tea, he had insisted on her eating an ice at Rumpelmayer's. At Rumpelmayer's they ran into the admiral and Hermione. The admiral had spoken of his meeting with Alie.

"Where did you have tea?" asked the girl.

"Never mind about my tea," retorted her sister. "Tell me your news."

Whereupon Mollie, not in the least hesitantly, told it. Jimmy had asked her to marry him! That is to say, he had spoken about marriage in such a way as to leave no doubt about his intention to propose. That was one of the admirable things about Jimmy. He never beat around the bush. She, of course, had "choked him off." Jimmy must be taught that these things couldn't be fixed up over an ice in a tea-shop.

"Still," concluded the modern young, "I'm very fond of James. The chances are that I shall marry him in the autumn."

"And James Wilberforce," thought Aliette, as she went down to dinner, "is just the person whose wife's family must be sans reproche!"

Dinner completed her mental bouleversement. Hector--she divined even before they sat down--was in a difficult mood. Hector insisted on champagne, insisted on their sharing it. He grew boisterous on the first glass. "They would have a cheery evening," said Hector. "They would get the car round after dinner, and drive to Roehampton." But on Aliette's suggesting that he and Mollie should go alone, he dropped both the scheme and his pose of boisterousness. Catching the look in his eyes, she began to be frightened.

Only twice before--once after her first discovery of his infidelities, and once a year later--had Aliette seen that particular look in Hector's eyes. It betokened contest. Not the casual entreaties of recent months, but contest--contest almost physical! Formerly, though resenting the indignity of such a contest, she had never dreaded it. But to-night--to-night was different.

When Lennard brought in the port, Hector refused to be left alone. They stayed with him while he drank two glasses; and again, watching him, Aliette's mood relented. The look in his eyes had grown soft, almost pleading. "Poor old Hector," she thought; "so many women could have given him all that he requires from a wife. Only I--I can't. I'm Ronnie's--Ronnie's."

Once more her mind whirled. This way. That way. Guilt, fear, love, uncertainty drove the wheels of her mind.

Yet both mind and body possessed one certainty: that the physical Hector had died three years since.