"Does it mean you no longer care?" He made a movement as if he turned on her. "Do you want me to say I do?" "Perhaps so," she answered huskily. "Perhaps I find nothing else worth living for. Do you think it has been pleasant for me since I saw you last in the Luxembourg?" Her words made no impression on him. He was thinking of those three a few yards away--of Susannah at her harp, of my lady with the open book on her knee, of my lord listening to the music, as they had so often done before. There were only two doors and a length of corridor between them. "Why do you look at me so strangely?" asked the Countess. "Cannot you say good-bye and go?" Every word she said expressed this desire--to have it all secret, hidden away, concealed, to deceive Rose and "these women." Marius straightened himself. "I will go, madam." She was not satisfied. "Like that?" she cried. "In what manner?" he asked wildly. "In what manner should I take leave of you?" She took an impatient turn about the room. "Do you desire to madden me? Am I to tell you all you are to do? It did not use to be so." "Why will you dwell on the past. You, not I, have made it different." "You, not I," she retorted bitterly, "_find_ it so different. Would to God ye had told me then it was a mere Maytime's amusement! It might have saved a broken heart!" He came a desperate step towards her. "Aspasia!" She turned swiftly at that. "Oh, my dear," she cried in a shaking voice, "I am so lonely and so tired!" He stood, neither advancing nor retreating, staring at her appealing presence with distracted eyes. Before either spoke, Rose Lyndwood entered the room. CHAPTER IX MY LORD'S ADJUSTMENT "Ye are a long time writing this letter," said the Earl, closing the door; then he saw his wife as she stood in the shadows of the bookcase, huddled together. For a second there was complete silence; then my lord spoke. "Why did you not come into the withdrawing-room, madam? I thought you upstairs." She answered quickly. "So I was--till this moment. I came to select a book to distract me, not knowing I was disturbing Mr. Lyndwood." Her lie came too glibly, and the readiness of it made Marius wince. The Earl crossed the room. He looked from his brother to his wife, and then down at the blank sheet of paper and the newly sharpened unstained quill upon the desk. "What is the matter, Marius?" he asked, with a slight smile. "Matter, sir?" The Countess was rigid in her own defence, but Marius interrupted. "Hush!" he said, almost sternly; then he turned to his brother. "The Countess Lavinia was my Aspasia," he said manfully and simply. "You will remember, my lord--she hath come down here to ask me to leave her house. Old memories are ofttimes painful. I will go to London with the dawn." The Countess sank heavily into the chair against the wall. "You are a fool! Oh!" she cried stormily, twisting her fingers. "Oh, fool!"