To-night the feeling was even stronger than it had ever been before. At her first suggestion that it was time to go, an elusive current passed from him to her. He had been holding her hand, and his had been cool and only slightly on the quiver from time to time when her own fingers pressed more markedly against his. But now, all at once it seemed as if a sudden current of lava had penetrated his veins; his hand almost scorched her own, and though visibly it did not move, yet she felt the pulses throbbing and trembling beneath the flesh. The look of misery in his face made her own heart ache though she tried to smile with easy gaiety. "To-morrow we go to the Temple Show together; don't forget, Luke." Her words seemed to recall him from another world, and he quickly enough pulled himself together and helped her on with her cloak. Colonel Harris with the gentle tactfulness peculiar to kind hearts had loudly announced that he would be waiting in the hall. "Anything the matter, Luke?" she asked as soon as her father had gone from the room. He contrived to smile and to look unconcerned. "Not particularly," he replied. "You seem different to-night, somehow." "How different?" "I can't explain. But you are not yourself." "Myself more than ever. My adoration for you is more uncontrolled--that is all." She wrapped herself up in her furs, for it was silence that gave the best response. And then he said quite calmly: "Will you go first. I'll switch off the light." "Father will be waiting down stairs," she rejoined. Then she went past him and out through the door, and he had to go back to the mantel-piece where one of the electric light switches was. He turned off the light; the room remained in darkness save where the dying embers of the fire threw a red glow on the sofa where she had sat with him, and the footstool on which her evening shoe had rested. And the conventional man of the world, schooled from childhood onward to discipline and self-control, fell on both knees against that mute footstool, and leaning forward he pressed his burning lips against the silk cushions of the sofa, which still bore the impress and the fragrance of her exquisite shoulders. Then he, too, went out of the room. CHAPTER XII SHALL A MAN ESCAPE HIS FATE? On the way to the Danish Legation, Colonel Harris asked Luke what his plans were for the evening. "I shall," replied Luke, "call at Grosvenor Square. I may find Uncle Rad, or Philip, or both at home. I mean to have a good tussle about this wintering abroad. It's really most important." "I call it criminal," retorted Colonel Harris, "keeping a man in London who has been used to go south in the winter for the past twenty years at least." "Uncle Rad is still fairly well now, though I do think he looks more feeble than usual. He ought to go at once." "But," suggested Louisa, "he oughtn't to go alone." "No. He certainly ought not." "Would Mr. de Mountford go with him?" "I don't think so."