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Whether his glance had quelled it or whether the force of her feelings had worked itself out it was impossible to say, but her eyes had lost their resolution. She stood hesitating for a moment, then she turned and moved to the mantel-piece. "That night you found me changed?" Loder was insistent. "Changed and yet not changed." She spoke reluctantly, with averted head. "And what did you think?"
Then the suggestion vanished as she turned and greeted Eve. "How sweet of you to come!" she murmured. And it seemed to Loder that a more spontaneous smile lighted up her face. Then she extended her hand to him. "And you, too!" she added. "Though I fear we shall bore you dreadfully."
She was quite short with me yesterday because I went in to speak to Owen during the afternoon!" "Oh, but that's absurd!" Herrick felt a quite unreasonable dislike for the superior Miss Loder. "After all you are his wife she is only his secretary and husbands and wives have a claim on each other which no sane person would deny." "Yes." She did not look convinced, and he tried again.
"By Jove!" said Blessington Eve said nothing. Loder was parting with Lakely, and his was the laugh that had attracted them both. The interest excited by his talk was still reflected in his face and bearing as he made his way towards them. "By Jove!" said Blessington again. "I never realized that Chilcote was so tall." Again Eve said nothing.
The methodical care with which they moved seemed like the tightening of a string already strained to breaking-point, yet neither spoke because neither had the courage necessary for words. Once or twice as they traversed the Strand, Loder made a movement as if to break the silence, but nothing followed it.
There was a pause while she waited for his answer her head inclined to one side, her green eyes gleaming. Loder, conscious of her regard, hesitated for a moment. Then his face cleared. "Right!" he said, slowly. "'The Arcadian' tonight!" Loder's frame of mind as he left Cadogan Gardens was peculiar.
He glanced at the fire, at the table, finally at the chair on which he had thrown his overcoat before entering the bedroom. At the sight of the coat his gaze brightened, the aimlessness forsook him, and he gave an exclamation of relief. "By Jove!" he said. "I clean forgot." "What?" Loder looked round. "The rings." He crossed to the coat and thrust his hand into the pocket.
It wanted but one word, one simple word of denunciation, and the whole scheme was shattered. In the dismay of the moment, he almost wished that the word might be spoken and the suspense ended. But the maid came on in silence, and so incredible was the silence that Loder moved onward, too.
He made a speculative measurement with the stem of his pipe. Chilcote still looked irritable and disturbed. "I detest rings. I never wear rings." Loder raised his eyes calmly. "Neither do I," he said. "But there's no reason for bigotry." But Chilcote's irritability was started. He pushed back his chair. "I don't like the idea," he said. The other eyed him amusedly.
In the days that followed Fraide's marked adoption of him Loder behaved with a discretion that spoke well for his qualities. Many a man placed in the same responsible, and yet strangely irresponsible, position might have been excused if, for the time at least, he gave himself a loose rein. But Loder kept free of the temptation.
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