It was horrible that he should couple, even in thought, Athena Maule and that--that creature, over whom he had wasted, squandered, such treasures of adoring love. Rosie had been one of those young ladies who, to use a technical term, "walk on"; and because she was extraordinarily pretty, she was always placed in the front row of the foolish musical comedy of which he could still recall, not only every tune, but almost every word, so often had he been to the theatre after that first meeting. At the end of ten days,--he had known Athena Maule ten days, what a strange coincidence!--at the end of ten days he had asked Rosie to marry him. She had shilly-shallied for a while, and then, to his rapturous surprise, she had said "Yes." How angry, how scandalised, how shocked his relations had been! Tommy Pache--in those days old Mr. Pache had been "Tommy" to his relations--had hurried up to London and said all the usual things that one does say to a young fool on such an occasion, but even he had been struck by the girl's beauty, though of course Tommy had been careful not to let this out to the others when he had got back to them. How it all came back to him to-night! Lingard remembered the letters he had received, the letters he had written. It had gone on for some weeks--he couldn't quite remember how long now,--that time of anger, of impatience, of longing, of rapture. And then, within a very few days of that fixed for the quiet wedding which was to take place in a city church,--he had always avoided that part of London ever since,--Rosie had become the wife of another man, of a young idiot with a vacuous face and an enormous fortune, of whom he had not even troubled to be jealous, although his presence in the flat Rosie shared with another girl had often made him impatient. * * * * * Now Lingard felt desperately tired--tired in body, tired in spirit. But he was glad--glad that he had disregarded the promptings of his conscience, of his honour. It was delicious to be here indoors, with this kind, this enchanting, this angelically beautiful woman close, very close, to him. Athena held out her foot to the fire, and Lingard, staring down, saw that she was wearing a curious kind of slipper, one unlike any that he had ever noticed on a woman's foot before. A sandal rather than a shoe, it left visible the lovely lines of the arched instep and slender ankle. "You were out a long time," she said, and fixed her eyes on the clock. It was one of the curious costly toys of which Rede Place was full, and for which old Theophilus Joy had had a marked predilection. Fashioned like a tiny wall sundial, across its face was written in faded gold letters, "I only mark the sunny hours." The hands now pointed to three minutes to midnight. Lingard said no word. He went on staring down at Athena's little foot. He was wondering if she knew how exquisitely perfect she was physically, how unlike all other women.