"Man," she said, her eyes shining, "I'm not afraid of anything people can do to _me_. Nobody except you could ever _really_ hurt me. I--I didn't mean to desert; only just to efface myself. Won't you let me efface myself? Until--until Hector divorces me. It's the right thing--the best thing. Really it is." "Right or wrong," said Ronnie, "we'll see this business through--see it through together--even if it lasts all our lives." * * * * * Aliette, seeing the fighting-fire in those blue eyes, seeing the stubborn set of that protruded jaw, knew her momentary determination beaten to the ground. CHAPTER XVIII 1 Within one week of its first launching, "Khorassan" sank, leaving hardly a ripple, into the deep pool of theatrical failures. But for weeks and weeks thereafter, that shallow pool which is West End society rippled furiously to the stone which Julia Cavendish had thrown into it when she attended Patrick O'Riordan's first-night accompanied by her son and Aliette. Some of the consequences of that stone-throwing were explained to Ronnie's "wife" when--overpersuaded from her decision not to visit Hermione--she called at the little black-carpeted, Chinese-papered, orange-curtained box of a house in Curzon Street. Hermione, her willowy figure supine on an enormous sofa, her dark eyes glinting with a sympathetic curiosity not entirely bereft of humor, extended one ringless hand with a laughed "Well, my dear, you really have put your foot into it this time. Your in-laws are perfectly furious." Aliette laughed in reply (no one ever took Hermione quite seriously); possessed herself of a luxurious chair before the luxurious fire, and admitted: "It was rather a faux pas, wasn't it?" "I'm not so sure of that." Hermione's smooth brows crinkled in thought. "I'm not at all so sure of that. It's quite on the cards, _I_ think, that it'll lead to something. Sir Simeon told me, only last night, how perfectly impossible it was for such a state of affairs to go on." She rose from the sofa; and, coming over to the fire, took the vast pouffe in front of it. "Poor darling! It's rotten for you." Aliette stiffened at the suggestion of sympathy. "I'm quite happy, thank you." "Are you? I'm so glad." Hermione edged the pouffe closer. "My dear, you have surprised the clan. None of us imagined _you_ capable of a really-truly love-affair. Why, you're the last person in the world----" "Please, Hermione, don't let's discuss me." "But I want to discuss you. I think you're perfectly marvelous. How on earth you ever had the nerve. And from a husband like Hector!" Ellerson's wife paused to warm her expressive hands at the fire. "I never did like Hector. Strong, silent men always bore me to distraction. But Ronnie Cavendish is a perfect dear."