And even that was unutterably sweet. It should be so, only for this night. There would be no harm done. And it was for the sake of his Art, the psychological experience to be gathered. . . . There is no time in thought. The second hand of his watch had hardly moved when he leant towards her a little and spoke. "Cupid!" he said. "I think I know why they used to call you Cupid at your school!" Just as she had been a dear, clever and deferential school-girl in the Library, a girl-poet in the garden, a freakish companion-wit after that, so now she became a woman. He had fallen. She knew and tasted consciousness of power. Another side of the girl's complex personality appeared. She led him on and tried to draw back. She became provocative at moments when he did not respond at once. She flirted with a finished art. As he lit a cigarette for her, she tested the "power of the hour" to its limit, showing without possibility of mistake how aware she was. "What would Mrs. Lothian think of your bringing me here to dinner?" she said very suddenly. For a moment he did not know what to answer, the attack was so direct, the little feline thrust revealing so surely where he stood. "She would be delighted that I was having such a jolly evening," he answered, but neither his smile nor his voice was quite true. She smiled at him in girlish mockery, rejoicing! "You little devil!" he thought with an embarrassed mental grin. "How dare you." She should pay for that. "Would you mind if my wife did care," he asked, looking her straight in the eyes. "I ought to, but--I shouldn't!" she answered recklessly, and all his blood became fired. Yet at that, he leant back in his chair and laughed a frank laugh of amusement. The tension was over, the dangerous moment passed, and soon afterwards they wandered out into the night, to go upon the pier "just for half an hour" before starting for London. And neither of them saw that upon one of the lounges in the great hall, sipping coffee and talking to the newspaper-peer Herbert Toftrees was sitting. He saw them at once and started, while an ugly look came into his eyes. "Look," he said. "There's Gilbert Lothian, the Christian Poet!" "So that's the man!" said Lord Morston, "deuced pretty wife he's got. And very fine work he does too, by the way." "Oh, that's not his wife," Toftrees answered with contempt. "I know who that is quite well. Lothian keeps his wife somewhere down in the country and no one ever sees her." And he proceeded to pour the history of the Amberleys' dinner-party into a quietly amused and cynical ear. The swift rush back to London under the stars was quiet and dreamy. Repose fell over Gilbert and Rita as they sat side by side, repose "from the cool cisterns of the midnight air."