"It was the mater who insisted on my having a telephone," thought Ronnie. "The mater who furnished this room for me."

He looked round the room--at the Chippendale settee, the bookcases, the eighteenth-century engravings on the beige wall-paper. Looking, his heart misgave him.

The mater! He owed her so much in life. And now--now he was contemplating, more than contemplating, making definite, absolutely definite, a decision of which she could never approve, which might even cost him her love.

The mater! Ever since that moment of crisis in Hyde Park--through luncheon, through the rainy afternoon which followed luncheon, over the dinner she had insisted on his sharing--Ronnie had been watching her face, speculating about her, wondering what she would say if she knew. Now suddenly it seemed to him that she did know.

He tried to put the idea out of mind. But fragments of their conversation--fragments which memory could only imagine to have been hints--kept recurring to him. She had spoken--and this was rare with her--about his father; about a recent matrimonial shipwreck; about her article in the "Contemplatory." And not once, after Wilberforce left them, had she mentioned--Aliette!

The Chippendale clock on the mantelpiece gave a preliminary wheeze, and began chiming ten o'clock. At the sound, misgivings vanished. She--not his mother, but Aliette, Aliette, the very thought of whose name made the pulses hammer in his head--must no longer be kept waiting.

For a moment the shining black of the telephone fascinated Ronnie's eyes; for a moment, as one meditating a great decision, he stood stock-still. Then impulsively he lifted the receiver from its hook.

To his imaginative mind, the telephone became instrument of their fate. Waiting for the call, he saw, as one mesmerized, all their past, all the possibilities of their future; forgetting, in that mesmeric instant, his mother, the law, Brunton, everything in the world except the vivid of Aliette's hair, her deep brown eyes, the poised exquisite slenderness of her.

And an instant later he heard her voice. It came to him, very clear, very deliberate, across the wires:

"Is that you?"

"Yes."

"You're very late."

"I'm sorry. I didn't get away from Bruton Street till nearly ten. Are you alone?" Ronnie hated himself for that question: it sounded almost furtive. But Aliette's answer was the very spirit of frankness.

"Yes. I'm quite alone. In the library. Mollie's gone to bed. Why do you ask?"

"Because--there's something I want to say to you--Aliette." He paused a second, mastered by emotion; then again he said: "Aliette?"

"Yes--Ronnie."

"You're not angry with me--about Thursday?"

"No." It seemed to him that he could almost see her lips move. "No. I'm not angry--with you: only with myself."

"You know----" He hesitated. "You know that I love you."

"Yes, I know that." A little laugh. "It doesn't make things any easier for me, does it?"

"I want to see you again. Soon. May I?"

For a long time, the wire gave no answer. At last, very faintly, as though she were thinking rather than speaking, Aliette whispered: "This isn't playing the game."

"I know that. I've tried----" He could not bring himself to finish the sentence.

"Oughtn't we to go on--trying?"

"No." Now the man could actually vision her. It was as though she were in the room. Passion--banishing hesitancy--had its way with him. "Aliette! I can't go on living if I don't see you again. I've got to see you. Soon. To-morrow. You will meet me, to-morrow, won't you! I can't bear the thought of another three days without you."

Hesitancy returned, banishing passion. "I've offended her," he thought. "She's rung off." But after an interminable silence, Aliette answered:

"Where do you want me to meet you?" Then, faint again, and very shy: "I've got--we've got--such a lot of things to say to one another. Hadn't we--hadn't I--hadn't it better be in your rooms? I could come to you to-morrow afternoon. At about five o'clock. Would that do?"

"Aliette--dear----"

Before Ronnie could collect his wits for a further reply, he heard a whispered "Good night," and the click of a replaced receiver.

CHAPTER VIII