"Oh! the Duchess!" Roddy sighed. "I don't know, but it all seems different with her now. I've changed, I suppose. All her ideas are old-fashioned and wrong; I used to think her rather splendid----" "Yes--but she's ill and old, and you're the only person in the world she cares about." "Yes, I'll go," said Roddy slowly. "I've known I ought to go." Voices broke in upon them; the door opened and Rachel, followed by her friend May Cremlin, once May Eversley, came in-- "Oh! Dr. Chris! You dear!" she cried, and came forward and flung her arms about him and kissed him. Her cheeks were flushed, from her black furs her eyes shone at him. Some thought caught him. He knew where he had seen that excited glitter already to-day--Breton at luncheon-- They all talked. Then Christopher said that he must go. Rachel came with him to the door. In the hall she looked at him defiantly, that flash he knew so well. "You never come now, Dr. Chris: you've given me up." "I don't care for you in a crowd very much. There's always a crowd now----" "Ask me alone and I'll come," she said, but still her eyes were defiant. "No," he said gravely. "I'll do no asking, Rachel. When you want me I'm there for you at any time--at _any_ time----" For answer she flung her arms again about him and hugged him. Her heart was beating furiously. Then without another word she left him. IV He could not go back to Harley Street yet. The sense of apprehension that had been growing with him all day would give him a melancholy evening, were he to spend it alone. He thought of Brun. Someone had told him that the little man was in London. He found him in his rooms, reading, with a cynical expression on his face, a French review. "I came to see--" said Christopher, "whether you happened to be free to-night and would dine with me. I'm a pessimist for once this evening and it doesn't suit me!" Brun was very, very sorry, but he was dining with a Russian princess; it was most tiresome that he should have to waste his time with a Russian princess when he'd come over to London on this occasion expressly to study the English people at this interesting crisis of their affairs, but there it was--he'd no idea how he'd let himself in for it, and how much rather would he spend the evening with his friend, Christopher. Christopher said that he would smoke one cigarette and that then he must go. "And so you feel pessimistic?" said Brun, looking at Christopher curiously--"It's the war, _Je crois bien_--How alike you all are!" "No," said Christopher, "I don't think the war's much to do with it. I dare say the war's a very good thing for all of us."