"I've been thinking about you, too." "I want you to tell me something. Do you think that I love you?" "Oh, yes, of course." The tone of the voice was mocking. "I am serious," said Elton. There were a few seconds of silence. What had happened? "Are you there?" he asked. "It is very dangerous to be serious. Good-bye." "You have not been sleeping well lately, have you?" Grace asked her husband. "Oh yes," he lied. "What makes you think that?" "Well, you look horribly tired, anyhow. I don't believe you're well. I do wish you'd see a doctor." Harry reassured her. He was, he said, as fit as could be. "Well, what are you and Rosamond Fayre going to do after dinner?" "Don't know exactly. It depends upon what she wants. A theatre, I suppose. Is there anything going on not too absolutely rotten?" "Nothing that I have seen lately. If you can get out of it, don't take her to the theatre. Get home early and go to bed. You really look as if you wanted a rest." Grace was going to hear Kubelik that evening, dining first with the Halwards. Her husband did not hear Kubeliks cheerfully, and it had been Grace's suggestion that he should take poor Rosamond to dine somewhere. Everyone felt they must do something for poor Rosamond to get a little colour and brightness into her days. Eight hundred a year and a husband in China! What a life! Harry Elton had accepted the suggestion without enthusiasm. He said he supposed he might as well do that as anything else. It was part of the tragedy of Rosamond's poverty that she could not afford as many taxicabs as she needed. She went about a good deal, and she found it necessary to go about economically. Left to herself, she would have taken the tube to Dover Street and then stepped across the road. But Elton's expensive motor-car, after taking Grace to the Halwards', went on to South Kensington to fetch Rosamond. She was grateful, as she always was. "I often wonder," she said plaintively, "why everybody is so good to me--you especially." "I am by no means certain that I am good to you. I spoke to you on the telephone this afternoon." "Not now, no," said Rosamond firmly. She was quite right. You cannot discuss the sweet and secret sinfulness of your heart when the waiter is handing you the entrée. Possibly Elton also recognised this. But his next remark was rather brutal. "You have never told me about the man in China. Tell me now." Rosamond answered in French. There were no waiters near at the moment to overhear her. If there had been, they all understood French perfectly. But to Rosamond, French had always given a feeling of security. Her story was brief and simple. She had married at eighteen. It had been a girl's infatuation, and it had lasted just two years. No, there had never been any actual break between them. He had to take up this post in China. They were too poor for him to refuse it. It brought him five hundred a year. "Out of which," said Elton, "he sends you a measly hundred."