No! He did not blame her. To blame her would have been ridiculous. She was only what she was, and not worth blame. She was nothing at all. How right, how cursedly right, were the respectable dames in the accent of amused indifference which they employed for their precious phrase, "the pretty ladies"! Well, he would treat her generously—but through his lawyer.

And in the desolation, the dismay, the disillusion, the nausea which ravaged him he was unwillingly conscious of fragments of thoughts that flickered like transient flames far below in the deep mines of his being.... "You are an astounding woman, Con." ... "Do you want me to go to the bad altogether?" ... In offering him Queen had not Concepcion made the supreme double sacrifice of attempting to bring together, at the price of her own separation from both of them, the two beings to whom she was most profoundly attached? It was a marvellous deed.... Worry, volcanoes, revolutions—was he afraid of them?... Were they not the very essence of life?... A figure of nobility!... Sitting there now by the window over the river, listening to the weir.... "I shall never be any more good." ... But she never had a gesture that was not superb.... Was he really encrusted in habits? Really like men whom he knew and despised at his club?... She loved him.... And what rich, flattering love was her love compared to—!... She was young.... Tenderness.... Such were the flames of dim promise that nickered immeasurably beneath the dark devastation of his mind. He ignored them, but he could not ignore them. He extinguished them, but they were continually relighted.... A wedding?... What sort of a wedding?... Poor Carlos, pathetically buried under the ruthless happiness of others! What a shame!... Poor Carlos!

(Nice enough little cocotte, nothing else! But, of course, incurable!... He remembered all her crimes now. How she had been late in dressing for their first dinner. Her inexplicable vanishing from the supper-party, never explained, but easily explicable now, perhaps. And so on and so on.... Simpleton! Ass!)

He had walked heedless of direction. He was near Lechford House. Many of its windows were lit. The great front doors were open. A commissionaire stood on guard in front of them. To the railings was affixed a newly-painted notice: "No person will be allowed to enter these premises without a pass. To this rule there is no exception." Lechford House had been "taken over" in its entirety by a Government department that believed in the virtue of mystery and of long hours. He looked up at the higher windows. He could not distinguish the chimney amid the newly-revealed stars. He thought of Queen, the white woman. Evidently he had never understood Queen, for if Concepcion admired her she was worth admiration. Concepcion never made a mistake in assessing fundamental character.

The complete silent absorption of Lechford House into the war-machine rather dismayed him. He had seen not a word as to the affair in the newspapers—and Lechford House was one of the final strongholds of privilege! He strolled on into the quietness of the Park—of which one of the gate-keepers said to him that it would be shutting in a few minutes.