‘On the contrary, I have thought of myself. I have had a capital time, Mrs. Arbuthnot--for I have been near you.’ Dinah never looked more nobly handsome than at this moment. A cold night, passed without sleep, a greenish-yellow fog, must be fatal adversaries, at 3 A.M., to all mere prettiness. Dinah’s beauty could stand alone, without colouring, without animation. The lines of her head and throat, the full calm eyelids, the lips, the chin, could be no more shorn of their fair proportions than would those of the Venus Clytie--should the Venus Clytie chance to be exposed to the mercy of a Channel fog. ‘You have been near a very stupid person, my lord. I have had too much heaviness on my heart to talk,’ confessed Dinah. ‘I have scarce exchanged a dozen words even with Miss Bartrand.’ ‘Mrs. Arbuthnot, have you forgiven me?--do, please, drink your coffee before it is cold--don’t make me feel that I am in your way--boring you as usual; have you forgiven a horribly foolish speech I made, just before you disappeared in the darkness, you know?’ ‘Which foolish speech?’ asked Dinah Arbuthnot, laconically, but innocent of sarcasm. ‘Ah, which? I am glad you are good-naturedly inexact. And still,’ went on Lord Rex, with characteristic straightforwardness, ‘foolish or not, I meant every word I said. If the woman I loved was free, would look at me, I should be a changed man, would make my start in the world to-morrow.’ ‘Make your start?’ repeated Dinah, off her guard. ‘Yes. Look after sheep in New Zealand, plant canes, or whatever they do plant, in South America, and feel that with her, and for her, I was leading a man’s life.’ And for a moment Dinah Arbuthnot’s pity verged on softness. Listening to the genuine emotion in Rex Basire’s tone, glancing at the lad, in his thin drenched jacket, as he stood, holding the salver ready for her coffee cup, his devotion--by reason, perhaps, of an unacknowledged contrast--touched her. For a moment, only. Then she stood, self-accused, filled with a sickening detestation of her own weakness. That she was more than indifferent, personally, to Rex Basire, that he would have been distasteful to her in the days when she was fancy free, the girlish days before she first saw Gaston, extenuated nothing to Dinah’s sensitive conscience. She had tacitly condoned the folly of Rex Basire’s talk! Latent in her heart there must be the same vanity, the same small openness to flattery, which she had, without stint, condemned in women like Linda Thorne. Was this self-knowledge a necessary sequel to the abundantly bitter lessons which the last twenty-four hours had taught her? ‘Do you forgive me, Mrs. Arbuthnot? Speak one word, only. I should be the most miserable wretch living if I thought I had offended you, consciously or unconsciously.’