It did not seem to matter to her in the least whether the flunkeys in waiting were listening or not, she talked of the family, of "your mater" and "Blunders" and "V" and other people, touching, it seemed on the most intimate matters and all with a lightness of tone and spirit that would have been delightful, no doubt, had he known the discussed ones more intimately, and had his mind been open to receive pleasurable impressions. He would have to tell her directly after dinner the whole of his terrible story. It was as though Fate were saying to him, "You will have to kill her directly after dinner." All that light-hearted chatter and new found contentment, all that brightness would die. Grief for the man she loved, hatred of the man who had supplanted him, anguish, perplexity, terror, would take their places. When the terrible meal was over, she ordered coffee to be served in the music-room. He lingered behind for a moment, fiddling with a cigarette. Then, when he came into the hall with the sweat standing in beads upon his forehead, he heard the notes of the piano. It was a Mazurka of Chopin's, played with gaiety and brilliancy, yet no funeral march ever sounded more fatefully in the ears of mortal. He could not do it. Then--he turned the handle of the music-room door and entered. CHAPTER XVII THE SECOND HONEYMOON Only three of the electric lights were on in the music-room. In the rosy light and half shadows the room looked larger than when seen in daylight, and different. She had wandered from the Mazurka into Paderewski's Melodie Op. 8. No. 3, a lonesome sort of tune it seemed to him, as he dropped into a chair, crossed his legs and listened. Then as he listened he began to think. Up to this his thoughts had been in confusion, chasing one another or pursued by the monstrosity of the situation. Now he was thinking clearly. She was his, that girl sitting there at the piano with the light upon her hair, the light upon her bare shoulders and the sheeny fabric of her dress. He had only to stretch out his hand and take her. Absolutely his, and he had only met her twice. She was the most beautiful woman in London, she had a mind that would have made a plain woman attractive, and a manner delightful, full of surprises and contrarieties and tendernesses--and she loved him. The Arabian Nights contained nothing like this, nor had the brain that conceived Tantalus risen to the heights achieved by accident and coincidence. She finished the piece, rose, turned over some sheets of music and then came across the room--floated across the room, and took her perch on the arm of the great chair in which he was sitting. Then he felt her fingers on his hair.