“There’s a taxi!” said Craven. “One minute!” He let her arm go and ran after it, while she stood waiting at the corner. In a moment he came back followed by the cab, which drew up by the kerb. He opened the door and she got in. He was preparing to follow her when she leaned forward and put her hand on the door. “Mayn’t I? Don’t you wish me to come with you?” She shook her head. “But do let me see you home. If you are ill you really oughtn’t to be alone.” “But I’m spoiling your evening. Why not go back?” “Go back?” “Yes--go back to Beryl?” He stiffened, and the hard look came into his face. She saw his jaw quiver slightly. “To Miss Van Tuyn? But she is with someone.” “But she asked you!” “She asked both of us. I shall certainly not go back alone.” “Really, I wish you would! Go back and--and see Beryl home.” He looked at her in astonishment. “Oh, I couldn’t possibly do that! There was no suggestion--I couldn’t do that, really. I wonder you ask me to. Well--” She took her hand away from the door and he shut it. But he remained beside it--did not give the chauffeur her address. “Why won’t you let me take you back?” he said. “I don’t understand.” She smiled, and he thought it was the saddest smile he had ever seen. “One is only a bore to others when one is ill,” she said. “Good-bye. Tell the man, please.” He obeyed her, then took off his hat. His face was grim and perplexed. As she was driven away in the night she gave him a strange look; tragic and pleading, he thought, a look that almost frightened him, that sent a shiver through him. “Is she horribly ill?” he asked himself. “What can it be? Perhaps she did go to Switzerland to see a doctor. Perhaps . . . can he have condemned her to death?” He shivered again. The expression of her eyes haunted him. He stood for a moment at the street corner, pondering over her words. What could have induced her to ask him to go back to Beryl Van Tuyn, to see Beryl Van Tuyn home? She wanted him to interfere between Miss Van Tuyn and that man, Nicolas Arabian! She tried metaphorically to push him towards Miss Van Tuyn. It was inexplicable. Lady Sellingworth was a woman of the world, past mistress of all the _convenances_, one in whom any breach of good manners was impossible, unthinkable! And yet she had asked him to go back to the restaurant, and to thrust himself into the company of a girl and a man who were dining by themselves. She had even asked him, a young fellow, certainly younger than Beryl Van Tuyn’s escort, to play the part of chaperon to the girl! Did she--could she know something about Arabian?