Why, at the mere striking of those fusees, had all the life and joy suddenly gone out of me? I did not know.... But stay; I am not sure that in this I do not lie. Perhaps it would be nearer the truth to say that I would not know, and yet again that is not all.... Perhaps I had better pass on; you may know soon enough, if you care, what was the matter. Red and gold would now have been better suited to those two mainsprings of my life, my Love and my Ambition; but suddenly to change the gold into green, the hated hue of my past Jealousy.... Let me pass on. The thing will soon be clear. For a minute and more I had hardly heard Evie's chatter, but presently I became conscious that she was repeating a phrase, as if a little surprised that she got no answer. I roused myself. "Eh?... What were you saying, dear?" I apologised. As if the striking of those matches had made an alteration in her too, her playfulness had vanished. Apparently another little access of candour had taken its place. Evidently I had missed some necessary link, for she was now murmuring, "Poor dear--I haven't been able to get her out of my head--it seems wrong somehow that I should be so happy and she----" "She?... Who?" I asked in surprise, now fully awake again. Evie mentioned a name. At the next table another crimson match went off, leaving, as it died down fumily, the yellow twinklings of the garden a bilious green. I spoke slowly. The name she had mentioned had been that of my own former _fiancée_. "Kitty Windus?" I said. "What about her?" Evie made no answer, but only stroked her cheek against the cloth of my shoulder--a familiar gesture of hers. "I'm afraid I don't quite understand," I said. Nor did I quite. I could not believe she was jealous. If Evie was jealous, never, never woman had had less cause. Except as the bitterest of mockeries, I had never been engaged to any woman but herself, for only that old horrible poverty and despair of mine had been the cause of my playing a trick with more of the falsely theatrical about it than of real life--the deliberate engaging of myself to one woman as a means to getting another. The impossible situation had lasted for a few months only, and had then ended in the abrupt vanishing, without explanation, of Kitty Windus from that part of London in which she had lived. From that day to this I had not set eyes on her. I leaned over Evie. "Dearest," I said gently, "do you mean that there's something you would like to know about Kitty?" Then, with a little shock, she seemed to realise that I might think what in fact had for the moment crossed my mind--that she was jealous of Kitty.