"Que diable," the psychologist was saying to himself, "c’est comme ça que l’on arrange ces petites affaires-là en Angleterre? Le mari arrive, vous trouve en tête-à-tête, et l’amant part. Voilà tout. C’est inouï! Je m’attendais, je l’avoue, à un dénouement plus palpitant. Mais malgré tout..." Bethune had gone, without a word. The door was closed. M. Châtelard was resuming his seat: "N’y-a-t’il pas, quand même, quelque chose de fort intéressant dans cette simple solution?—oui, un caractère exclusivement Britannique dans cette simplicité; comme qui dirait un vestige, au milieu du désordre même, de la vertu puritaine qui tenait si fort aux apparences, de cette horreur du shocking si profondément enracinée dans l’Anglo-Saxon?" As he raised his musing eye, he found Lady Aspasia’s bright grey orb fixed upon him with a world of meaning. *CHAPTER XX* "Hush!" said Jani, "Missie Sahib ill. Must not be disturbed." "Is she in bed?" whispered Aspasia. "Don’t be a stupid, Jani. I shan’t do her any harm." With her hand on the door handle, Jani shook her head till the monstrous gold ear-rings waggled against her cheeks. "Missie Sahib, no more disturbed to-night," she repeated emphatically. Her opaque eyes were fixed with triumphant resentment upon Aspasia’s countenance. Aspasia, the off-hand young lady, who flouted old Jani’s vested right, who had taken upon herself to do Lady Gerardine’s hair this very night, must learn that her presence was not always desirable. "Who is there?" cried Rosamond’s voice, high and strained, from within. "I can see no one. Jani, you must let no one in." "There, missie," said the old woman. Aspasia pushed the claw-like hand ruthlessly from the door knob. "It is I, Aunt Rosamond," said she, tapping the panels with soft consolatory palms. "You’ll let me in, darling, won’t you? I’ll do police, too, never fear, and better than Jani." "Oh, you! Come in," bade the voice within, faintly, but with an unmistakable accent of relief. Aspasia made a face at Jani, but passed in with something less than her usual flounce. Lady Gerardine was seated before the fire in her white dressing-gown, her arms hanging, her hair loose about her. Jani had evidently been interrupted in the act of brushing by the sound of the approaching footsteps, and had flown to her sentry post. "Stay outside, Jani. Lock the door, Baby." Lady Gerardine just turned her head sufficiently to give these orders, then relapsed into her brooding attitude, her eyes hard, dry, encircled, fixed unseeingly upon the fire, her face livid, save for the burning spot on either cheekbone. Aspasia, aghast, stopped a second to survey her. "She does look very ill," she thought hopelessly. "Worse than ill." And her heart contracted. "Darling," she said, approaching timidly, "just let me plait this dear hair, and then you must get to bed."