Langly's gaze which had not met hers--and never met anybody's for more than a fraction of a second--shifted. He continued his attentions to his moustache; his eyes roved; he looked at but did not see a hundred things in a second. "You don't know where she's gone?" he inquired with characteristic pertinacity and an indifference to what she had said, absolutely stony. "Do you mean trouble for that girl?" "I do not." "What do you mean?" "Nothing." "Do you want to marry her?" "I said that I was considering nothing in particular. We are friends." "Keep away from her! Do you understand?" "I really don't know whether I do or not. I suppose you mean Sir Charles." Mrs. Sprowl turned red: "Suppose what you like, you cold-blooded cad! But by God!--if you annoy that child I'll empty the family wash all over the sidewalk! And let the public pick it over!" He rested his pale, protuberant eyes on her for a brief second: "Will any of your finery figure in it? Any relics or rags once belonging to the late parent of Sir Charles?" Her features were livid; her lips twisted, tortured under the flood of injuries which choked her. Not a word came. Exhausted for a moment she sat there grasping the gilded arms of her chair, livid as the dead save for the hell blazing in her tiny green eyes. "I fancy that settles the laundry question," he said, while his restless glance ceaselessly swept the splendid room and his lean, sunburnt hand steadily caressed his moustache. Then, as though he had forgotten something, he rose and walked out. A footman invested him with hat and overcoat. A moment later the great doors clicked. In the silence of the huge house there was not a sound except the whispers of servants; and these ceased presently. All alone, amid the lighted magnificence of the vast room sat the old woman hunched in her chair, bloodless, motionless as a mass of dead flesh. Even the spark in her eyes was gone, the lids closed, the gross lower lip pendulous. Later two maids, being summoned, accompanied her to her boudoir, and were dismissed. Her social secretary, a pretty girl, came and left with instructions to cancel invitations for the evening. A maid arrived with a choice of headache remedies; then, with the aid of another, disrobed her mistress and got her into bed. Their offices accomplished, they were ordered to withdraw but to leave one light burning. It glimmered over an old-fashioned photograph on the wall--the portrait of a British officer taken in the days when whiskers, "pill-box," and frogged frock-tunic were cultivated in Her British Majesty's Service. From where she lay she looked at him; and Sir Weyward Mallison stared back at her through his monocle. * * * * * Strelsa at home, unpinning her hat before the mirror, received word over the telephone that Mrs. Sprowl, being indisposed, regretfully recalled the invitations for the evening.