He did not ask her to explain, but his eyes followed her perpetually with a kindling flame which mounted steadily higher, and when they left the table his hand closed for a moment upon her arm. She shook it off with a laugh and a shrug. “Every game has its rules,” she said. He laughed also, answering her mood. “Every woman makes her own,” he said. They went out into the gleaming streets and entered the waiting car. The unaccustomed luxury was like a dream to Frances. It was no longer an effort to put the past away from her. It had sunk of itself into the far dim distance. Very curiously the only memory that remained active in her mind was that of the purple flower that bloomed upon the coping of the cloisters in the Bishop’s garden. The vision of that was fantastically vivid, as it had been on that day of her first talk with Montague Rotherby. The pain at her heart had wholly ceased, and she wondered a little, barely realizing that she had stilled it temporarily with this anæsthetic of unreality. But a sub-conscious dread of its return made her steep herself more and more deeply in its oblivion. After all, to whom did it matter except herself? This man with his cynical eyes was too experienced a player to be made a loser in one night. And she had so little left to lose. She sat in a box with him at the theatre, and though she quickly absorbed herself in the play, she was aware of his undivided attention from the beginning. It even exasperated her at last, so that she turned to him after the first act with a movement of impatience. “Does it interest you so little,” she said, “that you can’t even be bothered to glance at the stage?” “I have seen it already three times,” he made answer, “and I am more interested at the present moment in watching the effect it has upon you.” She uttered a laugh, but the words gave her an odd feeling of shock. The play was a fashionable one, but though it compelled her deepest interest, it held moments of disgust for her as well. “I should never want to see this more than once,” she said at the end of the second act. Whereat he laughed. “Your education has been neglected,” he said. “We all think like this now-a-days. The puritanical atmosphere of Tetherstones has spoilt your taste.” She was silent. Somehow the very word sent a pang to her heart. He leaned slightly towards her, looking at her. “Tell me about your sojourn at Tetherstones!” he said. “Were the farm people decent to you? Were you happy there?” There was a slighting note in his voice that she found intolerable. She turned deliberately and met his look. “You know the Dermots,” she said. “You know quite well that they are not just—farm-people. Why should you conceal the fact?” He made a careless gesture. “I know that one of them shot me in mistake for a rabbit that night I waited for you,” he said. “I was never more scared in my life. That was the son, I presume? Did he ever mention that episode to you?” “Never,” she said.