“Yes, but with an important link missing from the chain. You see a good deal might have occurred between the moment of the Countess Alexia’s leaving the room and the finding of what happened. No, my dear friends, it looks very like what we all think it, but there is an important section of the affair still covered in mystery.” Greetland had made it his business to work up the subject; it was his vocation to be glib and authoritative on every likely topic of the day. “The Countess’s position is not exactly enviable,” a man suggested. “It is utterly and entirely odious,” Greetland agreed. “One scarcely likes to believe the thing of her; she is such a charming girl. Yes; one is horribly sorry for her. Without forgetting the dictum _de mortois_, one may hazard the opinion that poor Reggie probably brought the thing on himself and got no more than he deserved.” “H’m!” There was a general pursing of lips as of men who felt constrained to keep silence when it was in their minds to say much. Restraint, however, was not a virtue which either character or inclination encouraged Greetland to practise. “There was that affair of Annabel Fancourt,” he remarked, in a low tone, as of those who discuss the dead in their coffined presence. “Behaved badly there, eh?” a man suggested, feeling his way carefully along the fascinating path of scandal which leads directly away from the above-mentioned dictum. Greetland shook his head with a suggestion of unutterable condemnation. “Ah; always understood so,” the other man proceeded, gaming boldness since no one seemed inclined to protest. After all, it is often quite as piquant to discuss the sins of the dead as of the living, and actually does less harm--to them. “Rather a bad lot,” another ventured. “Always might be calculated on to go crooked with women,” the fourth gossip supplemented. “They always spoilt him. Injudicious blandishment has sent many a good man wrong.” “Women,” said Monty Vaxton who cultivated a reputation as a social philosopher, “women can’t resist a gamble in love. That is why the professional Philander always has his hands, or rather his arms, full.” “At any rate they are optimists in the passion,” Jack Bellairs remarked, “and they think they can succeed where other women have failed; quite forgetting that they are playing for an elusive stake, and where winning is, if possible, more disastrous than losing.” “So you think,” said Hugh Lufton, who understood facts better than theories, turning to Greetland, “that Countess Alexia was under the influence of Martindale’s fascinations?” Greetland shrugged. “It looks like it; though no one even suspected it. But she is a clever girl.” “Scarcely, if that were the case,” Vaxton objected. “My dear Monty,” said the drawing-room sage, “no woman is clever in love, although many are perfect geniuses in the matter of marriage. When we talk of a clever woman we eliminate love from the question.”