Nothing short of a miracle could have made Matravers’ luncheon party a complete success; yet, so far as Berenice was concerned, it could scarcely be looked upon in any other light. Her demeanour towards Adelaide Robinson and Fergusson was such as to give absolutely no opportunity for anything disagreeable! She frankly admitted both her inexperience and her ignorance. Yet, before they left, both Fergusson and his companion began to understand Matravers’ confidence in her. There was something almost magnetically attractive about her personality.

The luncheon was very much what one who knew him would have expected from Matravers—simple, yet served with exceeding elegance. The fruit, the flowers, and the wine had been his own care; and the table had very much the appearance of having been bodily transported from the palace of a noble of some southern land. After the meal was over, they sat out upon the shaded balcony and sipped their coffee and liqueurs,—Fergusson and Berenice wrapt in the discussion of many details of the work which lay before them, whilst Matravers, with an effort which he carefully concealed, talked continually with Adelaide Robinson.

“Is it true,” she asked him, “that you did not intend your play for the stage—that you wrote it from a literary point of view only?”

“In a sense, that is quite true,” he admitted. “I wrote it without any definite idea of offering it to any London manager. My doing so was really only an impulse.”

“If Mr. Fergusson is right—and he is a pretty good judge—you won’t regret having done so,” she remarked. “He thinks it is going to have a big run.”

“He may be right,” Matravers answered. “For all our sakes, I hope so!”

“It will be a magnificent opportunity for your friend.”

Matravers looked over towards Berenice. She was talking eagerly to Fergusson, whose dark, handsome head was very close to hers, and in whose eyes was already evident his growing admiration. Matravers was suddenly conscious of an odd sense of disturbance. He was grateful to Adelaide Robinson for her intervention. She had risen to her feet, and glanced downwards at the little brougham drawn up below.

“I am so sorry to go,” she said; “but I positively must make some calls this afternoon.”

Fergusson rose also, with obvious regret, and they left together.

“Don’t forget,” he called back from the door; “we read our parts to-morrow, and rehearsals begin on Thursday.”

“I have it all down,” Berenice answered. “I will do my best to be ready for Thursday.”

Berenice remained standing, looking thoughtfully after the little brougham, which was being driven down Piccadilly.

Matravers came back to her, and laid his hand gently upon her arm.

“You must not think of going yet,” he said. “I want you to stay and have tea with me.”

“I should like to,” she answered. “I seem to have so much to say to you.”

He piled her chair with cushions and drew it back into the shade. Then he lit a cigarette, and sat down by her side.

“I suppose you must think that I am very ungrateful,” she said. “I have scarcely said ‘thank you’ yet, have I?”

“You will please me best by never saying it,” he answered. “I only hope that it will be a step you will never regret.”

“How could I?”

He looked at her steadily, a certain grave concentration of thought manifest in his dark eyes. Berenice was looking her best that afternoon. She was certainly a very beautiful and a very distinguished-looking woman. Her eyes met his frankly; her lips were curved in a faintly tender smile.

“Well, I hardly know,” he said. “You are going to be a popular actress. Henceforth the stage will have claims upon you! It will become your career.”

“You have plenty of confidence.”

“I have absolute confidence in you,” he declared, “and Fergusson is equally confident about the play; chance has given you this opportunity—the result is beyond question! Yet I confess that I have a presentiment. If the manuscript of ‘The Heart of the People’ were in my hands at this moment, I think that I would tear it into little pieces, and watch them flutter down on to the pavement there.”

“I do not understand you,” she said softly. “You say that you have no doubt——”

“It is because I have no doubt—it is because I know that it will make you a popular and a famous actress. You will gain this. I wonder what you will lose.”

She moved restlessly on her chair.

“Why should I lose anything?”

“It is only a presentiment,” he reminded her. “I pray that you may not lose anything. Yet you are coming under a very fascinating influence. It is your personality I am afraid of. You are going to belong definitely to a profession which is at once the most catholic and the most narrowing in the world. I believe that you are strong enough to stand alone, to remain yourself. I pray that it may be so, and yet, there is just the shadow of the presentiment. Perhaps it is foolish.”

Their chairs were close together; he suddenly felt the perfume of her hair and the touch of her fingers upon his hand. Her face was quite close to his.

“At least,” she murmured, “I pray that I may never lose your friendship.”

“If only I could ensure you as confidently the fulfilment of all your desires,” he answered, “you would be a very happy woman. I am too lonely a man, Berenice, to part with any of my few joys. Whether you change or no, you must never change towards me.”

She was silent. There were no signs left of the brilliant levity which had made their little luncheon pass off so successfully. She sat with her head resting upon her elbow, gazing steadily up at the little white clouds which floated over the housetops. A tea equipage was brought out and deftly arranged between them.

“To-day,” Matravers said, “I am going to have the luxury of having my tea made for me. Please come back from dreamland and realize the Englishman’s idyll of domesticity.”

She turned in her chair, and smiled upon him.

“I can do it,” she assured him. “I believe you doubt my ability, but you need not.”

They talked lightly for some time—an art which Matravers found himself to be acquiring with wonderful facility. Then there was a pause. When she spoke again, it was in an altogether different tone.

“I want you to answer me,” she said, “it is not too late. Shall I give up Bathilde—and the stage? Listen! You do not know anything of my circumstances. I am not dependent upon either the stage or my writing for a living. I ask you for your honest advice. Shall I give it up?”

“You are placing a very heavy responsibility upon my shoulders,” he answered her thoughtfully. “Yet I will try to answer you honestly. I should be happier if I could advise you to give it up! But I cannot! You have the gift—you must use it. The obligation of self-development is heaviest upon the shoulders of those whose foreheads Nature’s twin-sister has touched with fire! I would it were any other gift, Berenice; but that is only a personal feeling. No! you must follow out your destiny. You have an opportunity of occupying a unique and marvellous position. You can create a new ideal. Only be true always to yourself. Be very jealous indeed of absorbing any of the modes of thought and life which will spring up everywhere around you in the new world. Remember it is the old ideals which are the sweetest and the truest.... Forgive me, please! I am talking like a pedagogue.”

“You are talking as I like to be talked to,” she answered. “Yet you need not fear that my head will be turned, even if the success should come. You forget that I am almost an old woman. The religion of my life has long been conceived and fashioned.”

He looked at her with a curious smile. If thirty seemed old to her, what must she think of him?

“I wonder,” he said simply, “if you would think me impertinent if I were to ask you to tell me more about yourself. How is it that you are altogether alone in the world?”

The words had scarcely left his lips before he would have given much to have recalled them. He saw her start, flinch back as though she had been struck, and a grey pallor spread itself over her face, almost to the lips. She looked at him fixedly for several moments without speaking.

“One day,” she said, “I will tell you all that. You shall know everything. But not now; not yet.”

“Whenever you will,” he answered, ignoring her evident agitation. “Come! what do you say to a walk down through the Park? To-day is a holiday for me—a day to be marked with a white stone. I have registered an oath that I will not even look at a pen. Will you not help me to keep it?”

“By all means,” she answered blithely. “I will take you home with me, and keep you there till the hour of temptation has passed. To-day is to be my last day of idleness! I too have need of a white stone.”

“We will place them,” he said, “side by side.”