"It was decent of Hermione, frightfully decent, especially as she's a kind of relation of Hector's. All the same, I don't think I'll go and see her."

Aliette, disrobed, sat staring into the gas-fire of their Powolney Mansions bedroom.

"Why not?" asked a shirt-sleeved Ronnie.

She turned to him, and her face showed very pale.

"Man, it's all so hopeless."

"It isn't. It isn't a bit hopeless. The mater's right. H. B. must act now."

"He won't, and even if he does--Oh, don't you see that I've--that I've ruined you! I've ruined your career. I've ruined you both."

"Rubbish!" There was something of his mother's brusquerie in the man's tone.

"It isn't rubbish." The woman was deadly in her calm. "It's the absolute truth. Don't let us deceive ourselves."

He tried to take her in his arms; but she rose, eluding him. "Don't, Ronnie! Let's be sensible; it's high time. We--you and I and your mother--have made a mistake. A mistake that's almost irretrievable. There's only one thing to be done now----"

"And that is?" He had never known her in this mood. She seemed utterly different from the sensitive Aliette of a few hours since; almost unloving, hard, purposeful, resolute.

"And that is?" he repeated.

"I must leave you."

At her words Ronnie's heart stopped beating as though some giant had put a finger on it. For one fraction of a second, love vanished utterly; almost, he hated her.

"Yes," went on Aliette, "I must leave you. It's the only way, I'll take a little cottage. Somewhere not too far from London. And you--you must go and live with your mother."

His heart began beating again, faintly.

"But why?" he managed. "Why?"

"Because that's the only way to stop people from talking. If they know that you're at Bruton Street, that I'm not at Bruton Street, then," she was faltering now, faltering in her firm purpose, and she knew that she must not falter; "then they'll think that your mother didn't know anything when she invited us to-night."

He came toward her: and she felt her momentary determination weaken; felt herself powerless to do the right. He put his hands on her shoulders, and looked her deep in the eyes. Then he smiled, the quaint, whimsical smile she loved best.

"You're not serious, Alie?"

"I am," she faltered, "desperately serious. You'll let me have my cottage, won't you?"

"You know I won't." He had her in his arms now. "You know that I won't consent to anything so absurd." He bent to kiss her. "Darling, don't let's lose our pluck. It's been a rotten evening for you. Rotten! I know that."

"It's not of myself that I'm thinking."

"I know that, too. I'm not thinking for myself, either. I'm trying to think for both of us, for all three of us. We've got to see this thing through. Together."

"Together!" The word weakened her still further.

"Yes, together." He followed up his advantage. "Life's a fight. A hard fight. You mustn't desert."

"And you"--her voice, as she lay motionless in his arms, was almost inaudible--"you think I'm worth fighting for?"

"More than anything in the world. But I wish"--a little he, too, faltered, his fears for her sake making him afraid--"I wish that people didn't hurt you so."

She stirred in his arms; and her face upturned to his.

"Man," she said, her eyes shining, "I'm not afraid of anything people can do to me. Nobody except you could ever really hurt me. I--I didn't mean to desert; only just to efface myself. Won't you let me efface myself? Until--until Hector divorces me. It's the right thing--the best thing. Really it is."

"Right or wrong," said Ronnie, "we'll see this business through--see it through together--even if it lasts all our lives."

Aliette, seeing the fighting-fire in those blue eyes, seeing the stubborn set of that protruded jaw, knew her momentary determination beaten to the ground.

CHAPTER XVIII