Gita had given Geoffrey to Polly with a grand gesture, convinced on her part that she alone was the obstacle to the happiness of her friend. In her brief interviews with her wounded husband’s surgeon the conversation had been strictly technical. Nor had his cool impersonal gaze wavered for a second, nor followed her. It was more likely to follow the enchanting Miss Pleyden. He had come to his senses. Odd if he hadn’t. But they knew even less of what was going on in Geoffrey’s mind than they did of each other. Nor had he the remotest idea of what either of them was up to. If he had guessed that they were calmly, more or less, arranging his destiny for him he would have resented it for a moment and then laughed. That Gita loved him, however collaterally, he had never had the happiness to suspect; although he had known that night as they sat opposite in the dim drawing-room, disguised as their more picturesque ancestors, he would have attempted to win her if she had been free—yes, won, in the end, for he had felt that curious vibration between them. And even after that amazing assertion of hers at the Pleydens’ he refused to believe that Polly’s regard for him was anything but bright friendship spiced with coquetry. He had immense confidence in himself as a surgeon, but had given too little time or thought to women for the fostering of conceit. He was quite unlike the vapid men of her circle—he had heard or read somewhere that all society men were vapid—and he amused this brilliant rather metallic little butterfly for the moment. She certainly amused him, let him down, sent him back to his work refreshed; and during this last week she had been as spring-water in a thirsty desert. That Polly was too proud to reveal a glimpse of her deeper feelings, or even to betray sentiment until he gave her her cue, was the last thing that would have occurred to him. Love alone would have shattered his obtuseness and his love-stream was flowing turbulently in another direction.