Lingard knew nothing of flirtation, as the word was understood in Mrs. Maule's circle. She supposed him, rightly, to be a man with but little knowledge of the world in which the pursuit of the tenderer emotions is carried to a fine art; she judged him, erroneously, to be a man strangely lacking in certain primitive instincts. But that made the state of bondage to which she had already reduced him the greater triumph. To a thinking mind there is something sombre, disturbing, in the thought that the attraction of a man to a woman, whatever be the quality of that attraction, manifests itself in much the same way. Athena knew the signs. To-night every omen pointed one way. She put the thought--the slightly insistent memory--of Jane away from her. Jane should have known how to guard what had perhaps never been really hers. She set her door ajar. It would be very annoying if General Lingard were to come in and, as she knew he had done some nights ago, creep up silently through the house.... At last there came the sounds of footfalls across the flags of the Garden Room. Athena began to experience that curious sensation which goes by the name of a beating heart. In other words, she felt strung up to a high pitch of emotion. Bayworth Kaye had given her some delicious moments, but she had never felt with him what she felt now. For the first time Athena--skilful huntress of men--had found a quarry worthy of pursuit. Was it possible that to-night her quarry would elude her? Was it conceivable that Lingard would push his scruples, his sense of absurd delicacy, as far as that? Athena had not yet learnt to reckon with Hew Lingard's conscience,--the conscience, perhaps it would be more true to say the honour, he had already deliberately thrust aside to-night, during those few unquiet moments in the smoking-room. She remained, however, absolutely still. Lingard advanced a few steps nearer to the partly open door. He was evidently hesitating, and Athena felt she could bear the suspense no longer. "Is anyone there?" she called out in a low voice. "Is it Hew?" She only called him by that name when they were alone together. He opened the door and came in. "You must be cold," she said tremulously. "Do come nearer the fire." Lingard came towards her. No, he was not cold. He had been walking, covering miles in the hour he had spent trying to tire, to deaden, himself out. It had been a terrible time of self-communion, self-reproach, self-abasement. The state he found himself in to-night recalled with piteous vividness that episode of his stormy youth which had led to his long break with the Paches.