"Friends, eh!" she mimicked him wickedly, plying her fan like a madwoman; "well I fancy I know what sort of friendship has made you look ten years older in half a year. Oh, Ricky, Ricky!"--she added with an abrupt change of feeling--"I'm sorry for you. I like you even when you are impertinent to me--and you know I do! But I--my heart is set on her marrying Sir Charles. You know it is. Could anything on earth be more suitable?--happier for her as well as for him? Isn't he a man where Langly is a--a toad, a cold-blooded worm!--a--a thing! "I tell you my heart's set on it; there is nothing else interests me; I think of nothing else, care for nothing else----" "Why?" "What?" she said, suddenly on her guard. "Why do you care for it so much?" "Why? That is an absurd question." "Then answer it without taking time to search for any reason except the real one." "Ricky, you insolent----" "Never mind. Answer me; _why_ are you so absorbed in this marriage?" She said with a calmly contemptuous shrug: "Because Sir Charles is deeply in love with her, and I am fond of them both." "Is that sufficient reason for such strenuous and persistent efforts on your part?" "That--and hatred for Langly," she said stolidly. "Just those three reasons?" "Certainly. Just those three." He shook his head. "Do you disbelieve me?" she demanded. "I am compelled to--knowing that never in all your life have you made the slightest effort in behalf of friendship--never inconvenienced yourself in the least for the sake of anybody on earth." She stared at him, amazed, then angry, then burst into a loud laugh; but, even while laughing her fat features suddenly altered as though pain had cut mirth short. "What is the matter?" he said. "Nothing.... _You_ are the matter.... I've always been fool enough to take you for a fool. You were the only one among us clever enough to read us and remain unread. God! If only some of us could see what we look like in the archives of your brain!... Let it go at that; I don't care what I look like as long as it's a friendly hand that draws my features.... I'm an old woman, remember.... And it _is_ a friendly pencil you wield, isn't it, Ricky?" "Yes." "I believe it. I never knew you to do or say a deliberately unkind thing. I never knew you to abuse a confidence, either.... And you were the receptacle for many--Heaven only knows how many trivial, petty, miserable little intrigues you were made aware of, or how many secret kindnesses you have done.... Let that go, too. I want to tell you something." She motioned him nearer; she was too stout to lean far forward: and he placed his chair beside hers. "Do you know where and when Sir Charles first saw Strelsa Leeds?" "Yes." "In Egypt. She was the wife of the charming and accomplished Reggie at the time." "I know."