Lady Cheyne’s anxiety left her, like smoke. And she gave a laugh and drew what she called that old-fashioned child into her arms again. “My dear,” she said, “don’t let _that_ distress you. Make yourself more important than his work. Encourage him to love you more than himself. He’ll be different from most men if he is capable of that! But perhaps happiness is something new in his life, and I shouldn’t wonder, with Lady Feo for a wife.” It never occurred to Lola to ask her friend how she had discovered the secret. She listened eagerly to her sophistries, trying to persuade herself that they were true. “Get him to take you away. There are beautiful places to go to, and he never will be missed. There’ll be a paragraph,—‘ill-health causes the resignation of Mr. Fallaray’; the clubs will talk, but the people will believe the papers, and presently Lady Feo will sue for divorce, desertion. A nice thing,—she being the deserter! And you and he,—what do you care? Is happiness so cheap that you can throw it away, either of you? If he loves you, _that’s_ his career, and a very much better one than leading parties and making empty promises and becoming Prime Minister. If he loves you well enough to sacrifice all that, for the sake of womanhood see that he does it, and you will build a bigger statue for him than any that he could win.” And she kissed her little de Brézé, who seemed to have undergone a perfectly natural _crise de neuf_, being so much in love, and patted her on the shoulder. “Take an old woman’s advice, my pet. If you’ve won that man, keep him. He’ll live to thank you for it one of these days.” And finally, when Lola slipped into the twilight in her silver frock, there didn’t seem to be a single cloud in the sky. Only an evening star. What Lady Cheyne had said she believed because she wanted to believe it, because this Great Romance was only three days old and hope had been so long deferred.—She stopped in the old garden and picked a rose and pulled its thorns off so that she might give it to Fallaray, and she lingered for a moment taking in the scents and the quiet sounds of that most lovely evening,—more lovely and more unclouded even than that other one, which was locked in her memory. And then she went along the path through the corner of a wood. A rabbit disappeared into the undergrowth, but the fairies were not out yet, and there was no one to spy. Was happiness so cheap that she could throw it away,—his and her own? “If you’ve won that man, keep him.” She danced all the rest of the way and over the side road to the gate in the wall,—early, after all, by half an hour. She would wait outside until she heard Fallaray’s quick step and watch the star. “I’ll get him to take me away,” she thought. “There are beautiful places to go to, and he never will be missed.” She turned quickly, hearing some one on the road. She saw a car drawn up a little distance away, and a man come swinging towards her. It was young Lochinvar. X