"Rather decent of Cavendish, leaving us alone like that," thought Mollie, waiting--befurred to the eyes--on the drafty platform at Baron's Court station.

Strangely affected by her sister's revelations, she found herself as the train got under way--comparing Ronnie with James; not, she had to admit, entirely to James's advantage.

It was all very well--went on thought--being in love with James, but why should one be in love with James? One ought to be jolly angry with the man. Taking it all round, he had behaved disgracefully. James had "shied off" because he couldn't face a little scandal; had written the coldest, unfriendliest letters.

"James, in fact," decided the girl, "doesn't care a button for me, and I'm a little fool to let myself care for him."

But when, arrived at the flat, Betty Masterman, with a malicious pout of her red lips, imparted the news that "the Wilberforce man" had rung up to suggest himself for tea on the following afternoon, Mollie Fullerford's mental dignity gave way to an ardor of anticipation which made her feel--as she expressed it to herself just before falling asleep--"a perfect little idiot"; and when, next afternoon--to all outward appearances his undisturbed self--Jimmy was heralded into the sitting-room, the girl felt extraordinarily grateful to the "man in Sloane Street" under whose ministrations she had spent the morning.

All the same, she felt uncommonly nervous. Watching her James as he arranged his long bulk in the most comfortable of the three chairs, handing him his tea, listening to the easy flow of small talk between him and Betty, Mollie found it impossible to realize that this could be the creature about whose physical and mental qualities her imagination had woven its tissue of dreams. That he and she were participators in a tragic romance; that if he asked her to marry him (and she knew subconsciously, even though consciously denying the possibility, that he would ask her) she would have to refuse--seemed possibilities connected rather with the heroine of some magazine story than with her own demure self.

Tea finished, Betty made the telephone in her bedroom an excuse to leave the pair alone; clicked the door on them; and pattered away in her high-heeled shoes.

"You're not looking as well as you were when I saw you last," managed Wilberforce, after a minute's self-conscious silence.

"Aren't I?" Mollie would have given a good deal to run away from him, to run after Betty.

"No. You haven't been ill or anything, have you?"

"Ill!" She forced a smile to her lips. "Rather not. I've been quite all right."

They gazed at each other. Then, abruptly, Jimmy said:

"Mollie, what's happened to us?"

"To us?" she queried shyly.

"Yes; to you and me." The man paused, plunged in. "We were such frightfully good pals last summer, and now it seems as though"--another pause--"we don't hit things off a bit."

"Is that my fault or yours?" There was scarcely a hint of their old camaraderie in the girl's sulky voice.

"Mine, I suppose," he sulked back.

"Well, isn't it?" she shot at him; and at that all the self-realizations, all the heart-searchings and heart-burnings in James Wilberforce blew to one bright point of clear flame, melting his reserve as the blow-pipe melts cast iron.

"Mollie," he blurted out, "you know how I hate beating about the bush. Let's be open with one another. Let's admit that something has happened." He leaned forward in his chair, both hands on his knees. "But you aren't going to let that something make any difference, are you?"

His method irritated her to abruptness.

"You are beating about the bush, Jimmy. Why not be straight?"

"I'm trying to be straight." His hands clenched. "But it's jolly difficult. You see, there are some things that--well, that one doesn't discuss with girls."

"Isn't that rather rot nowadays?" retorted Mollie, hating herself for the slang.

"I don't think it's rot. I think there are a good many subjects a man doesn't want to discuss with--with a girl he--er--cares about."

"Then he does care," thought Mollie; and felt her heart leap to the thought. Outwardly she made pretense of considering his sentence; her brows crinkled. Inwardly she pretended herself still vexed with him. She said to herself, "He mustn't see that I care. He must be taught his lesson."

"You're a bit old-fashioned, aren't you, Jimmy?" she prevaricated at last.

"Perhaps I am." Affection made him suddenly the schoolboy. "But it's devilish awkward, isn't it; this--this business about your sister?"

"Awkward!" Mollie's loyalty stiffened her to discard prevarication. "I don't think it's awkward. I think it's jolly rough luck on Aliette and Mr. Cavendish. Hector knows perfectly well they'd get married if he'd only set her free. I think Hector's a cad. Alie told him everything before she went. He knows jolly well she'll never go back to him. Why should she? A man doesn't own a woman for ever and ever just because he happens to marry her."

The speech roused Jimmy to an unwonted height of imagination. He saw himself marrying Mollie, quarreling with Mollie; saw Mollie running away from him, as Aliette had run away from Hector.

"So if you married a man, you wouldn't consider yourself tied to him for life?"

"Certainly not. Not if he didn't behave decently."

The girl's eyes were brave enough, but a shiver of apprehension ran through her body. She thought: "He couldn't care for anybody who said that sort of thing to him." Jimmy seemed to be considering her statement, weighing it up. It came to her instinctively that they were at the crisis of their lives.

"And if he behaved well to you?" The words seemed fraught with meaning.

"Why, then"--she could feel herself shivering, shivering from the soles of her feet to the roots of her bobbed hair--"then--there wouldn't be any need for me to run away from him."

Their eyes met; brown eyes searching violet. Their eyes lit with mutual understanding. Self-consciousness deserted her; deserted them both. She was conscious of him--close to her--seizing her hands--speaking rapidly, unrestrainedly:

"I've been a rotter--an absolute rotter, darling. I ought to have warned you the moment I found out. I ought to have told you that it didn't make any difference. It hasn't, it can't make any difference, not the slightest difference. Nothing that your sister may have done, may do, can affect us one way or the other. It's you I want to marry, not your sister."

"Jimmy!"

He was conscious of his arms round her--of his lips on hers--of her yielding to his kisses--returning them.

The gush of Jimmy's passion, of her own, frightened the girl. Somehow she freed herself from his kisses; and stood upright, tremulous, blushing a little, stammering a little, altogether incoherent.

"Jimmy, you mustn't, you oughtn't to. It isn't fair to me. It's not fair to Alie."

"What's she got to do with it?" Mollie could see the big vein on her lover's forehead throb to each syllable. "What's she got to do with us?"

"Everything." For a moment the girl felt herself the stronger. "Everything. It isn't fair. Can't you see why it isn't fair? How can I marry you?" Her voice broke. "How can I take my happiness while Alie's an outcast? She is an outcast. You wouldn't, you couldn't let her come to our wedding."

"Then you care for your sister more than you care for me?" interrupted Wilberforce, shirking the issue.

"I don't! I don't!" Strength had gone out of Mollie; she felt herself weak, incapable. "It isn't that. It isn't that a bit. Only I can't take my happiness while Alie's miserable. She is miserable, though she won't admit it. Don't you see how rotten it would be of me if I married you--with things as they are?"

"No, I don't." Her recalcitrance angered him.

"You must. Jimmy," softly, "you do want me to be happy with you, don't you?"

"Of course I want you to be happy with me." His anger relented. "I'd do anything in the world to make you happy."

"Would you, dear?"

"Rather. Only tell me what it is."

"It's only Alie." Loyalty strung her to the sacrifice. "Only Alie. Can't you do something for her? You're a lawyer; you know how these things are managed. Oh, do, please do something to help her, to help"--the young voice dwindled to a whisper--"to help both of us. Jimmy, I do want to marry you. I want to marry you most awfully. But I simply can't even promise to marry you with things as they are. It wouldn't be decent of me. Honestly it wouldn't. It wouldn't be decent of either of us. It wouldn't be playing the game."

They faced each other, half in love and half in hostility.

"You really mean that, Mollie?"

"Yes, I really mean it."

"And if I could manage to do anything?"

"If you only could"--she smiled into his eyes--"there wouldn't be a thing in the world to keep us apart."

Jimmy took the girl in his arms; and again she let herself answer his kisses. "I'll move heaven and earth and the lord chancellor," vowed James Wilberforce to that sleek bobbed head.