But the time was coming when she must practice all that Ronnie preached, and all that she believed. She was no fool, however intense her self-satisfaction. She was narrow, puritanical, in the sense to which that term has been debased, and eminently respectable. He might have converted her to devil worship and she would have remained respectable. Ronnie was going abroad after the trial. He had made money, and although he was not a very rich man, he had in addition to the solid fortune he had acquired through his association with Steppe, a regular income from his father's estate. He intended breaking with Steppe and was in negotiation for villas in the south of France and in Italy. Evie knew that she would accompany him, if he insisted. She knew equally well that she would no longer be accounted respectable. That thought horrified her. To her, a wedding ring was adequate compensation for many inconveniences. The fascinations of Ronnie were wearing thin: familiarity, without breeding contempt, had produced a mutation of values. The "exceedingly marvelous" had become the "pleasantly habitual." And she had, by accident, met a boy she had known years before. He had gone out to Canada with his parents and had returned with stories of immense spaces and snow-clad mountains and cozy farms, stories that had interested and unsettled her. And he had been so impressed by her, and so humble in the face of her imposing worldliness. Ronnie was, of course, never humble, and though he called her his beloved, she did not impress him, or make him blush, or feel gauche. She had more of the grand lady feeling with Teddy Williams than she could ever experience in the marble villas of Palermo. And Teddy placed a tremendously high value upon respectability. Still--he could not be compared with Ronnie. She had consented to pay a visit to Ronnie's flat. She was halfway to losing her respectability when she reluctantly agreed, but the thrill of the projected adventure put Teddy Williams out of her mind. The great event was to be on the day after Ronnie came back from Wechester. In the meanwhile, Ronnie, anticipating a dull stay at the assize town, made arrangements to fill in his time pleasantly. The day before he left London he called on Madame Ritti and Madame gave a sympathetic hearing to his proposition. "Yes, it will amuse Lola, but she must travel with her maid. One must be careful, is it not so? One meets people in such unlikely places and I will not have a word spoken against my dear girls." IX The case of the King against Ambrose Sault came on late in the afternoon of the third assize day. The assizes opened on the Monday and the first two and a half days were occupied by the hearing of a complicated case of fraudulent conversion; it was four o'clock in the afternoon when Sault, escorted by three warders, stepped into the pen and listened to the reading of the indictment.