"Of course you know what I am thinking of," she said at last. "You must have thought it all too, then and now, and very often. Of course--you had reason to." "What reason?" Vanbrugh looked up quickly, as he asked the question. "Oh, I cannot go into all that! You understand as well as I do. Besides, it is not a pleasant subject. John Darche was successful, young, rich, everything you like--except just what one does like. I always felt that she had married him by mistake." "By mistake? What a strange idea. And who should the right man have been, pray?" "Oh, no! She thought he was the right man, no doubt. It was the mistake of fate, or providence, or whatever you call the thing, if it was a mistake at all." "After all," said Vanbrugh, "what reason have we, you or I, for saying that they are not perfectly happy? Perhaps they are. People are happy in so many different ways. After all, John Darche and his wife do not seem to quarrel. They only seem to disagree--or rather--" "Yes," answered Dolly, "that is exactly it. It is not everything one sees or hears in the house. It is the suspicion that there are unpleasant things which are neither seen or heard by any of us. And then, the rest--your questions about the business, which I cannot answer and which I hardly understand. There are so many people concerned in an enormous business like that, that I cannot imagine how anything could be done without being found out." "However such things are done," answered Vanbrugh, gravely, "and sometimes they are found out, and sometimes they are not. Let us hope for the best in this case." "What would be the best if there were anything to find out?" asked Dolly, lowering her voice as they paused before Simon Darche's house. "Would it be better that John Darche should be caught for the sake of the people who would lose by him, or would it be better for his wife's sake that he should escape?" "That is a question altogether beyond my judgment, especially on such short notice. Shall we go in?" "We? Are you coming too?" "Yes, I am going to lunch with the Darches too." "And you never told me so? That is just like you! You get all you can out of me and you tell me nothing." "I have nothing to tell," answered Vanbrugh calmly, "but I apologise all the same. Shall I ring the bell?" "Unless you mean to take me round Gramercy Park again and show me more nurses and perambulators and dirty dogs. Yes, ring the bell please. It is past one o'clock." A moment later Miss Dolly Maylands and Mr. Russell Vanbrugh disappeared behind the extremely well-kept door of Simon Darche's house in Lexington Avenue. CHAPTER II.