"Oh! no, it doesn't," said Vane grimly. "However, we will let that pass. May I ask if your entertainment to-night was indicative of the joy you feel at the prospect?" She started to laugh again, and there was an ugly sound in it. A woman at the next table was looking at her curiously. "Stop that, Joan," he said in a low, insistent voice. "For God's sake, pull yourself together. . . ." She stopped at once, and only the ceaseless twisting of her handkerchief between her fingers betrayed her. "I suppose it wouldn't do to go into a fit of high strikes," she said in a voice she strove vainly to keep steady. "The Mainwarings might think it was their champagne--or the early symptoms of 'flu--or unrequited love. . . . And they are so very respectable aren't they?--the Mainwarings, I mean?" Vane looked at her gravely. "Don't speak for a bit. I'll get you another glass of champagne. . . ." But Joan rose. "I don't want it," she said. "Take me somewhere where we can talk." She laid the tips of her fingers on his arm. "Talk, my friend, for the last time. . . ." "I'm damned if it is," he muttered between his clenched teeth. She made no answer; and in silence he found two chairs in a secluded corner behind a screen. "So you went down in the 'Connaught,' did you?" Her voice was quite calm. "I did. Hence my silence." "And would you have answered my first letter, had you received it?" Vane thought for a moment before answering. "Perhaps," he said at length. "I wanted you to decide. . . . But," grimly, "I'd have answered the second before now if I'd had it. . . ." "I wrote that in your rooms after I'd come up from Blandford," she remarked, with her eyes still fixed on him. "So I gathered from Mrs. Green. . . . My dear, surely you must have known something had happened." He took one of her hands in his, and it lay there lifeless and inert. "I thought you were being quixotic," she said. "Trying to do the right thing--And I was tired . . . my God! but I was tired." She swayed towards him, and in her eyes there was despair. "Why did you let me go, my man--why did you let me go?" "But I haven't, my lady," he answered in a wondering voice. "To-morrow. . . ." She put her hand over his mouth with a little half-stifled groan. "Just take me in your arms and kiss me," she whispered. And it seemed to Vane that his whole soul went out of him as he felt her lips on his. Then she leaned back in her chair and looked at him gravely. "I wonder if you'll understand. I wonder still more if you'll forgive. Since you wouldn't settle things for me I had to settle them for myself. . . ." Vane felt himself growing rigid. "I settled them for myself," she continued steadily, "or rather they settled me for themselves. I tried to make you see I was afraid, you know . . . and you wouldn't." "What are you driving at?" he said hoarsely.