‘Don’t mention it,’ she said, getting up too and smiling. ‘I mean my interest. As for the other matter, it will all come out. Lionel will haul her up.’

‘Dear me, how dreadful!’

‘Yes, dreadful enough. But don’t betray me.’

‘Betray you?’ he repeated, as if his thoughts had gone astray a moment.

‘I mean to the girl. Think of her shame!’

‘Her shame?’ Mr. Wendover said, in the same way.

‘It seemed to her, with what was becoming so clear to her, that an honest man might save her from it, might give her his name and his faith and help her to traverse the bad place. She exaggerates the badness of it, the stigma of her relationship. Good heavens, at that rate where would some of us be? But those are her ideas, they are absolutely sincere, and they had possession of her at the opera. She had a sense of being lost and was in a real agony to be rescued. She saw before her a kind gentleman who had seemed—who had certainly seemed——’ And Lady Davenant, with her fine old face lighted by her bright sagacity and her eyes on Mr. Wendover’s, paused, lingering on this word. ‘Of course she must have been in a state of nerves.’

‘I am very sorry for her,’ said Mr. Wendover, with his gravity that committed him to nothing.

‘So am I! And of course if you were not in love with her you weren’t, were you?’

‘I must bid you good-bye, I am leaving London.’ That was the only answer Lady Davenant got to her inquiry.

‘Good-bye then. She is the nicest girl I know. But once more, mind you don’t let her suspect!’

‘How can I let her suspect anything when I shall never see her again?’

‘Oh, don’t say that,’ said Lady Davenant, very gently.

‘She drove me away from her with a kind of ferocity.’

‘Oh, gammon!’ cried the old woman.

‘I’m going home,’ he said, looking at her with his hand on the door.

‘Well, it’s the best place for you. And for her too!’ she added as he went out. She was not sure that the last words reached him.