All the old reverence and chivalry of that ideal friendship of which he had sung so sweetly vanished utterly. A faint, but growing brutality of thought came to him as he considered her. Her innocence did not seem so insistent as before. He could not place her yet. All he knew was that she was certainly not the Rita of his dreams. Yet with all this, his longing, his subjection to her every whim and mood, grew and grew each moment. He was absolutely pervaded by her. Honour, prudence, his keen insight were all thrust away in the gathering storm of desire. They had supper at a glittering palace in the Haymarket. In her simple girlish frock, without much adornment of any sort, she was the prettiest girl in the room. She enjoyed everything with wild avidity, and not the least of the exhilarations of the night was the knowledge--ripe and unmistakable now--of her complete power over him. Gilbert ate nothing at the Carlton, but drank again. Distinguished still, an arresting personality in any room, his face had become deeply flushed and rather satyr-like as he watched Rita with longing, wonder, and an uneasy suspicion that only added fuel to the flame. It was after midnight when he drove her home and they parted upon the steps of Queens Mansions. He staggered a little in the fresh air as he stood there, though Rita in her excitement did not notice it. He had drunk enough during that day and night to have literally _killed_ two ordinary men. "To-morrow!" he said, trying to put something that he knew was not there into his dull voice. "To-morrow night." "To-morrow!" she replied. "At the same time," and evading his clumsy attempt at an embrace, she swirled into the hall of the flat with a last kiss of her hand. And even Prince, at the club, had never seen "Mr. Gilbert" so brutishly intoxicated as he was that night. CHAPTER III THIRST "_A little, passionately, not at all?_" She casts the snowy petals on the air. . . . --_Villanelle of Marguerites._ Lothian had taken chambers for a short time in St. James' and near his club. Prince, the valet, had found the rooms for him and the house, indeed, was kept by the man's brother. Gilbert would not stay at the club. Rita could not come to him there. He wanted a place where he could be really alone with her. During the first few days, though they met each night and Gilbert ransacked London to give her varied pleasure, Rita would not come and dine in his chambers. "I couldn't possibly, Gilbert dear," she would say, and the refusal threw him into a suppressed fever of anger and irritation. He dare show little or nothing of it, however. Always he had a haunting fear that he might lose her. If she was silent or seemed cold he trembled inwardly and redoubled his efforts to please, to gratify her slightest whim, to bring her back to gaiety and a caressing, half lover-like manner. She knew it thoroughly and would play upon him like a piano, striking what chords she wished.