Bertie Carteret walked home alone. Estelle would not let him drive with her. Far up the stars blinked in a violet sky, the cool spring wind blew against his flushed face. Having been, up to the present, a mere ordinary honourable man, he was miserable. Gloss it over as he might he knew what he was asking for. The tall mass of the mansions towered high above him; he hated the place, its comfortless show. "Mr and Mrs Rabbit, who live in a warren," he said, as he let himself in. The little sitting-room was dusty, neglected, but he sat in it smoking until the stars went out and grey dawn came sickly pale to oust the night. A motor siren bleated below. After a little he heard the swish of silk. Esmé, haggard and flushed, came into the room. How she had changed. The childish look had gone for ever, replaced by a hard bitterness, by mirthless smiles. "You!" she said carelessly. "You've made a night of it, my friend." "I have been home for hours," he said coldly. "Tiens! Who knows!" She went to a table, poured out brandy and opened a bottle of Perrier. "Who knows, my Bertie. I saw you with Her at the theatre." He sprang up, white, angry, to find the words wither on his lips. How could he deny, refute, with to-morrow--nay, to-day--before him? He sat down again, wearily, as a man does who is very tired. "Look here, Bertie." Esmé lighted the gas fire, flung off her cloak; her hair was tossed, her thin arms and neck bared to the bounds of decency, her dress was a sheath outlining each slender limb. "Look here!" she said. "You're sick of me. Let's have done with it. I'll meet you half-way." "What do you mean?" he stammered. "Mean?" She lighted a cigarette, then took a little tablet from a box and dropped one into her glass. "This is Nervine--Steadier--what you like," she mocked, "and really morphia. My nerves have gone to pieces. I mean--go away; refuse to come back; amuse yourself with the fair Estelle, and I'll divorce you. Frank Dravelling would marry me," she said eagerly. Bertie gave no answer. "And I'm sick of this. He's a bleating, mawkish calf, but he's got fifteen thousand a year for me to spend, and if I don't, a dozen other women will." Cold disgust gagged him. Had she no sense of decent feeling, to talk like this? Was the girl he had married dead? "He is at the age when he admires rouge and paint," mocked Esmé. "He'll make me My Lady, and Society will be glad to know me again. I'm sick of being no one, of seeing glum looks and tracking round with fifth-rate women. Come, Bertie! It's easily arranged." As swift hands rub blurred glass, so that one can see clearly through what was dim, Esmé's words let the man's mental eyes look across the future.