Mrs. Elles had to make what she could out of the slight hesitation. He smiled, forcedly--she was sure it was forcedly. Egidia’s face was wreathed in kindly natural smiles as he bade good-bye--so was hers. It was pathetic. Mrs. Elles, with her superior knowledge of “fearful consequences, yet hanging in the stars,” felt as if they were all dancing on a grave--treading a volcano. She knew well enough that she would never go to tea with him, never touch his hand again perhaps, as she gave hers, and dreamt of the accustomed thrill of pleasure that the mere contact used to give her. It did not now. Was it that she was too nervous, too frightened to be receptive, or was it that his magnetism had ceased to flow for her, as a consequence of his indifference? He raised the heavy portière, and the light seemed to go out of two women’s lives as it fell to behind him. “Well,” said Egidia, complacently, “that will be the first tea party my cousin has ever given in his studio in his life, to my knowledge! I do hope it will come off, for I want you two to be great friends. You will--you are the veritable antithesis of each other.” Mrs. Elles interrupted her with a sudden burst of hysterical laughter. “Friends!” she said. “Friends! And my husband is going to make a co-respondent of him!” CHAPTER XII Egidia laid her head on her hands. The tale of Brignal Banks had been told. “Good God!” she said passionately. “And it is to Edmund Rivers that this thing has happened!” She thought of the poignant tale of love and disaster only as it affected the man. It was natural; Mrs. Elles had expected that she would do so, and yet she was a little aggrieved at not being treated as the central figure of any romance that happened to be forward. She valiantly stifled her feelings on this occasion, however, and rising from the low prie-dieu chair from which she had delivered her confession, knelt at Egidia’s feet, and gently pulled her hands down from her face. The gesture was pretty and appealing, but at this juncture it irritated the other woman almost beyond endurance by its dash of theatricality. Thus behave erring heroines of melodrama when they reveal “all” to their mentors. Egidia sat and stared at the little flushed face opposite her with an almost unfriendly gaze, and listened but coldly to the trickle of her excitable speech. “But it must not happen!” Mrs. Elles was saying. “It must not! It must not! You can save him, if you will, and that is why I have come to you. I have travelled all night, and I have not slept for two. If I tell my story badly, that’s why. There’s an iron band across my forehead. And I have had nothing to eat for ages. But I knew that you and he had always been great friends, to say the very least, and that it would be so easy for you---- You must forgive me, and understand that I did what I could. I acted for the best--on the spur of the moment. I thought it was the only way to save the situation--”