“It must be a week-end,” I said smiling, “for, you know, I work hard all the week.” “Lady Gascoyne shall write and ask you. She is at Hammerton herself at present.” It was quite unnecessary for his lordship to inform me of Lady Gascoyne’s whereabouts, for I followed the movements of his household as closely as he did himself. At Christmas I paid a flying visit to the Gascoynes in the South of France, and was welcomed with a curious quietness of passion by Miss Gascoyne, and like a son by her aunt and uncle. Miss Gascoyne always exalted me, mentally if not morally, and even in the latter direction she led me out of the limitations I had laid down for myself, and beyond which it would be dangerous for me to venture. I am quite capable of great moral enthusiasm, and it has always been my habit to keep out of the way of those likely to infect me with strenuousness. She talked of ideals quite simply and earnestly, and without the least suggestion of cant, and I was obliged to find some aspirations suitable to these occasions. Being a woman in love she was content to warm her romance at a very small fire, and, further, to imagine it a very big blaze. I was terribly afraid of being found out by her in any way. I knew that once we were married she would die rather than admit that she had made a mistake. Her loyalty would amount to fanaticism, but she was a woman who could take strong measures before the irrevocable was accomplished. Her attitude has been that of a medieval saint matched with a Cenci. She has held her peace, and she has professed to believe what she knew to be false; whilst at the same time she has suffered agonies of abasement. Nearly all women, however, are deceived in love. It is their pastime. Some never discover the fact, and dream their lives away from their marriage-day to the grave. If Miss Gascoyne hardly possessed the phlegmatic instinct which would enable her to join the comfortable ranks of the latter, she was none the less dwelling in a fool’s paradise during those winter days on the Riviera. Those who considered her cold would have been astonished had they known all. She was a concealed volcano. I returned to town a little exhausted by the rarified atmosphere of reverential romance in which I had been living, and looking forward with a sense of relief to the decadent fascination of Sibella. Miss Gascoyne with her Utopian dreams about the life of usefulness we were to lead required the natural antidote, and, strangely enough, the first whiff of the perfume Sibella used, wafted to me across the room as she rose to greet me, banished all sensation of ever having been bored by Edith, for I never admired her so much as when I was in the company of Sibella. In the same way I never longed for Sibella to such an extent as when I was with Edith.