The expression lasted but an instant and her face settled into a mask of fear; he had the impression that she was no longer aware of his presence. “If I thought that,” she articulated, “I’d go out and kill myself. It is the most hideous fate that can befall a woman, the most loathsome and degrading. But—thank God!—I’m not capable of it.” There was another lightning change and he was staring, almost open-mouthed, at the Miss Carteret to whom he was so agreeably accustomed. “You psychological novelists,” she said complainingly, “with your everlasting probing, get on my nerves. And your assumption that you can make a fashion of bad taste even more. The radical is not in the saddle yet, and even when he is, there will be groups in which manners and codes will survive and become the standard once more when the same old wheel has finished the same old revolution. Look at France.” He smiled amusedly. “Perhaps. But freedom of speech and of thought seems to me of more consequence than taste. . . . But I wouldn’t offend you for the world,” he added hastily. “Nor, for a jugful, have you other than you are.” “Thanks.” She rose, and smiled as he rose also. “Odd, you never forget your own manners. What a lot of self-posers we are! I see that supper is being brought in and I’m sure you want yours.” “Whew!” Turner almost whistled as he stood where she had left him. “Whew!” And he wondered if he had had a glimmer. . . . CHAPTER XI “I’m going down to the manor tomorrow,” announced Gita as she and Eustace lingered for a moment in the drawing-room after the last guest had departed. “Tomorrow? But we were not to go until Tuesday.” “You needn’t go. In fact I’d like to be alone for a while. Tired out. Don’t want to open my mouth for a week.” “Oh! As you please, of course. I’ll be detained until Tuesday. You do look tired,” he added solicitously. “But I shall miss you abominably. Couldn’t you shut yourself up here and rest?” “I want my old manor more than anything in the world!” she said passionately. “And I must be alone.” He stifled both astonishment and curiosity. “Then you shall have it, or anything else you want. Sit down for a moment and have a cigarette.” And Gita, who had no desire for the solitude of her bed, obeyed him. “I shall have to sleep on that davenport,” he said humorously. “Three of my friends are dead to the world upstairs.” “Beasts.” “’Fraid it’s bootlegger gin.” And then he slipped on the harness of his new rôle. “I saw you hidden in a corner with De Witt Turner for at least a quarter of an hour,” he said with a nice assumption of jealousy. “Women fall for him very hard, you know.” “Do they? They must be fools. I hate him.” Bylant raised his brows in genuine surprise. “Hate old Witt? He’s about the least hatable man in New York, I should think.” “Well, I can’t endure him and I’m not going to ask him to one of the house-parties.” “Did he make love to you?”