The note itself contained nothing to alarm Ronnie; and yet, dressing to obey its commands in his severe mannish bedroom, he felt nervous about the coming interview. For five days now he had been on edge; sleepless, unable to concentrate thought.

Every night he had expected that Aliette would telephone; every morning, every evening, he had expected a letter from her. It never dawned on his mind that she should be equally on edge, equally expectant. Since she had admitted her love, asking only that he should not hurry her, chivalry forbade the obvious course which his impatient manhood dictated--attack. Chivalry, too, urged him not to make any final move before weighing the uttermost consequences.

For himself, he had already weighed them; and they weighed light enough. But for her, even though a man and a woman decided their love justified before God and the law, remained always their justification before their fellow-creatures. Under any circumstances, the consequences would include a divorce. And even the farcical divorce of the period carried--for a woman in Aliette's position--its stigma. Ronnie remembered the Carrington case. Suppose Brunton cut up rough; perjured himself in court as Carrington had done--purely for spite. In an undefended divorce case, the man and woman cited could not defend themselves against a perjurer without risking their freedom.

And then, then--there was Julia to consider.

The mind of the clean-shaven man who let himself out of the dark-green door of 127b Jermyn Street, and strode rapidly across Piccadilly, may be compared to the hair-trigger of a cocked pistol.