Temple could not remember afterwards exactly how he got separated from the others. It just happened, as such unimportant things will. He missed them somehow, at a crossing, looked about him in vain, shrugged his shoulders and went home. Lady St. Craye hesitated a moment with her latchkey in her hand. Then she threw open the door of her flat. "Come in, won't you?" she said, and led the way into her fire-warm, flower-scented, lamplit room. Vernon also hesitated a moment. Then he followed. He stood on the hearth-rug with his back to the wood fire. He did not speak. Somehow it was difficult for her to take up their talk at the place and in the strain where it had broken off when Betty proclaimed her headache. Yet this was what she must do, it seemed to her, or lose all the ground she had gained. "You've been very charming to me this evening," she said at last, and knew as she said it that it was the wrong thing to say. "You flatter me," said Vernon. "I was so surprised to see you there," she went on. Vernon was surprised that she should say it. He had thought more highly of her powers. "The pleasure was mine," he said in his most banal tones, "the surprise, alas, was all for you--and all you gained." "Weren't _you_ surprised?"--Lady St. Craye was angry and humiliated. That she--she--should find herself nervous, at fault, find herself playing the game as crudely as any shopgirl! "No," said Vernon. "But you couldn't have expected me?" She knew quite well what she was doing, but she was too nervous to stop herself. "I've always expected you," he said deliberately, "ever since I told you that I often dined at Thirion's." "You expected me to--" "To run after me?" said Vernon with paraded ingenuousness; "yes, didn't you?" "_I_ run after _you_? You--" she stopped short, for she saw in his eyes that, if she let him quarrel with her now, it was forever. He at the same moment awoke from the trance of anger that had come upon him when he found himself alone with her; anger at her, and at himself, fanned to fury by the thought of Betty and of what she, at this moment, must be thinking. He laughed: "Ah, don't break my heart!" he said, "I've been so happy all the evening fancying that you had--you had--" "Had what?" she asked with dry lips, for the caress in his tone was such as to deceive the very elect. "Had felt just the faintest little touch of interest in me. Had cared to know how I spent my evenings, and with whom!" "You thought I could stoop to spy on you?" she asked. "Monsieur flatters himself." The anger in him was raising its head again. "Monsieur very seldom does," he said. She took that as she chose to take it. "No, you're beautifully humble." "And you're proudly beautiful." She flushed and looked down. "Don't you like to be told that you're beautiful?" "Not by you. Not like that!"