"I wish you would come and dine with me. I know a charming place quite near here, where they give you Italian things--you are so fond of Italy. Let me take you and give you something to eat, and then you shall go straight back to your rooms and rest. There is so much I want to hear." Her brows knit. "I have nothing to tell you," she answered slowly. He blamed himself for having risked the last sentence. She seemed to turn over his offer in her mind. At last: "No," she said, but he felt with reluctance. "I can't come this evening. I am tired and stupid. Some other evening, if you will ask us both." "Then must I go and dine alone at my club? My father and Mims are in Switzerland, and I am all alone." "Oh!" Her pity was awake at once. "I did not know." "Because you are tired is just why you should come," he went on. "I'm not a stranger, some one whom you must exert yourself to entertain. I'm your friend, am I not, Virgie?" The last word was hardly breathed. "Oh, you are--and friends are precious. If you are alone--really--and don't mind a dull person----" Even as she spoke he had hailed a taxi, and she was seated in it at his side before she well knew that she had consented. "This is the one advantage of your being married--I can take you about," said the young man, with an air of quiet confidence. "Gaunt seemed anxious about you. He said you had been unwell, and would, I am sure, be grateful to me for looking after you, and preventing your dining on a poached egg, which is what I know to have been your immoral intention." She laughed. "Tell him to stop a moment at Margaret Street. I must tell my maid not to keep the poached egg hot," she replied. This was done, and he took her to Ciliani's, the most charming restaurant in London. There was no band to drown talk, the tables were arranged so that parties did not intrude upon each other. They found places near a window, and as Virgie seated herself she thought of that awful lunch with her husband at the Savoy Restaurant. The memory made her wince. She remembered her panic terror, her dread of what was to come, her timid attempts to seem at ease. Little had she known what really awaited her. She resigned herself now to Gerald's care with a sudden beautiful sensation of relief. He was an old friend. In fact, the Rosenbergs were practically the only people she knew who belonged to the life at Lissendean as well as to more recent times. Perhaps Gerald realised how precious an asset such a link was, for he began to talk to her of Lissendean, and of those happy days when they had ridden and golfed together, had roamed the country with lunch in their pockets, and acted charades in the old hall. All through the charm of such talk Virginia's inner self, the sentinel conscience which ruled her, was helping her to gird on her armour. She was keenly aware that Gerald's first mention of her husband had caught her unprepared, also that Gerald had seen and interpreted her confusion.