She interrupted with a slight, negative smile and shake of her head: "Helena doesn't approve of me, you know, and of late there has been a decided coolness between the families. I'm afraid George fell out with Vincent for some reason--not too hard to guess, perhaps." He looked away, colouring with embarrassment. "So," she pursued evenly--"about yourself: are you married yet?" Matthias started, laughed frankly. "You didn't know about that, either?... Well, it's true even Helena couldn't have told you much, for I told her nothing.... No, I'm neither married, nor like to be." "She was so very sweet and pretty--" "Joan was wholly charming," he agreed gravely, "but--well, I fancy it was inevitable. We were lucky enough to be obliged to endure a separation of some weeks before, instead of after, marriage; and so we had time to think. At least, she must have foreseen the mistake we were on the point of making, for the break was her own doing--not mine." "You think it would have been a mistake?" "Oh, unquestionably. I confess I'd not have known it, probably, until too late, if she hadn't made me think when she threw me over. I hope it doesn't sound caddish--but I was conscious of a distinct sense of relief when I got back from California and found she'd cleared out without leaving me a line." "I think I understand. And did you never hear from her?" "Not from--by accident, _of_ her. She was predestined for the stage--I can see that clearly now, though I objected then. She was offered a chance during my absence, jumped at it, and made a sort of a half-way hit in a very successful sketch which, oddly enough, I happened to have written--under a pseudonym. It had been kicking round my agent's office for a year; he didn't believe in it any more than I did; and I disbelieved in it hard enough to be ashamed to put my own name to it. That's often the way with a fellow's work; one always believes in the cripples, you know.... Well, some actor chanced to get hold of the 'script one day, fell in love with it and put it on with Joan as his leading woman. If it had been anybody else's sketch, I'd never have known what became of her, probably. As it was, I knew nothing until I got back from the Coast.... I believe they got married very shortly after it was produced; and now they're playing it all over the country. Odd, isn't it?" "Very," Venetia smiled. "And so your heart wasn't broken?" He shook his head and laughed: "No!" But a spasm of pain shot through his eyes and deceived the woman a little longer. "And what have you been doing?" she pursued, meaning to distract him. "I mean, your work?" He shrugged. "Oh, I've had an average luckless year. To begin with, Rideout fell down on his production of 'The Jade God'--the only time it ever had a chance to get over--and a man named Algerson bought his contract and put it on at his stock theatre in Los Angeles. That's why I went out there--to see it butchered." "It failed?" "Extravagantly!"