"Oh yes, he's very much all right, I think, and I see him pretty often, for so busy and sought-after a man." She decided that she must risk something if she were to gain anything. "Isn't it rather a strange feeling, after having been so very much to one another, to be so absolutely apart now? I hope you'll tell me if you'd rather not talk?" "I don't mind," smiled Winnie. "It's a great change, of course, but really I don't often think of him--nor he of me, I expect." She added, with a little laugh: "At least I hope he doesn't, because he wouldn't think anything complimentary. Of course I was surprised about the divorce." "We were all rather surprised at that," Lady Rosaline murmured discreetly; her object was to obtain, not to give, information. "It's the one inconsistent thing I've ever known him do." She laughed. "I wonder if it's possible that he's fallen in love with somebody else!" Lady Rosaline threw no light. "Oh, well, he wouldn't have to ask in vain, I should think." Winnie said nothing. She looked at the sea with a smile which her companion felt justified in calling inscrutable. Lady Rosaline took another risk. "So much the worse for the woman, you'd say, I suppose?" "I don't want to say anything. What I felt seems pretty well indicated by what I did, doesn't it, Lady Rosaline? Because I wasn't in love with anybody else then, you know." No, what she felt was not sufficiently indicated for Lady Rosaline's purposes. What Winnie had done showed that, to her, life with Cyril was impossible; but it did not show why. Just the point essential to Lady Rosaline was omitted. "I should think some women might get on very well with him, though?" she hazarded. Winnie gazed over the lake; she appeared to ruminate. Then she turned to her companion, smiling. "Perhaps!" she said. "And now I really must go and see how Mrs. Lenoir--my friend--is. I hope we shall have another talk before we go--I don't mean about Cyril!" Lady Rosaline watched her erect figure and her buoyant step as she walked back to the hotel, recalled her gaiety and the merriment of her smile as she enjoyed lake, mountains, and the little town, caught again the elusive twinkle of her eyes as she referred to the one inconsistent thing that Cyril Maxon had ever done. And that 'Perhaps!'--that most unsatisfactory, tantalizing 'Perhaps!' Was it a genuine assent, or merely a civil dismissal of the question, as one of no moment to the person interrogated? Or was it in effect a dissent--a reception of the suggestion profoundly sceptical, almost scornful? Probably a different woman could--possibly some woman might--no woman conceivably could--that 'Perhaps!' seemed susceptible of any of the three interpretations. Lady Rosaline made impotent clutches at the slippery word; it gave her no hand-hold; it was not to be tackled.