For Legrand had slipped away, struggled to the far doorway to get to Esmé, caught a glimpse of a fair head on the stairs, but got no nearer. But that night he drew the strands of fate closer, for he wrote to Luigi: "I have seen your Lady Blakeney, and she is brown-haired, ordinarily pretty, no fair-haired goddess. If you will join me here for a day--get Cartier to act for me. Thy Nonno." Luigi arranged to come to London in ten days' time. As fog spreads, cold and bitter, so a whisper crossed London. Esmé, restlessly pleased by new dresses, by money to gamble with, went to the Holbrooks. Came, without thought of the scandal which was biting at her name, down to dinner. The new dinner-gown clung to her long, thin limbs; she was haggardly, dazzlingly handsome. Lady Mary Ploddy was at the fire. "How cold it is!" Esmé had played bridge for years with the Ploddy women. Lady Mary went on talking to Vita St Just as if she had heard nothing. "How goes bridge, Lady Mary?" Esmé said, carelessly. "Been winning lately? We can play in the mornings here." Mary Ploddy's powdered profile was slowly turned. "Oh, you, Mrs Carteret," she said icily. "I am rather off bridge. Vita, shall we sit down?" The whisper to yet another friend: "Oh, something. Her old friend, Denise Blakeney, has had to cut her. Sir Cyril insisted. I heard that it was something about a pendant. Amos Benhusan told one or two people--you know, the big jeweller." The chill deepened. Esmé was left alone at the fire, realizing suddenly that the women had drifted away from her. She looked at them curiously, turned to talk to a couple of men who came in, and forgot it. Something had put out the old Ploddy women, she decided carelessly. But that evening, next day, Esmé began to realize people were avoiding her. She saw glances as she came into a room; she noticed the sudden hush which told her she was being discussed. What was it? What could it be? The Holbrooks' party gave her no pleasure. For a time she tried to think it was jealousy, envy of her gowns, but Esmé was not small-minded; the thought had to be put away. She sat up for Bertie one night, called him in from the small room off hers, where he slept. "Bertie! these women are avoiding me," she flung out. "What is it? I've done nothing. They keep away from me--are almost rude; there's something, Bertie." "Lord!" He sat down, staring at his wife. She looked haggard, worn; older than her years. He began to think. People had been curiously _kind_ to him since he had come. He had been almost fêted by the men; they had "dear old chapped" him, asked him to play bridge and billiards, praised his shooting, offered to lend him horses, with a whispering undernote of pity in it all.