"Your words to-night, Dudley, have shown me plainly your intention is that we should drift apart. This being the case, you will not, I'm sure, refuse me the favour I ask. You will take me to the Duchess's. My brougham is below. I told Faulkes to return at eleven," she added, as she glanced at the clock. "Will you not have one last dance with me, if only as a tribute to the old happiness?" She spoke in the soft and persuasive voice that always charmed him. There were tears in her wonderful eyes. "I am really in no mood for a ballroom crush," he answered. "You know that I don't care for the Penarth set at any time." "I know that. But surely you will let me have my own way just once more?" "Very well," he answered reluctantly, with a deep sigh. "We will go, if you really wish it." "Of course!" she cried gladly. She flung her arms about his neck and kissed him fervently on the lips. Did she really love him? he wondered. And if she did, why did she act as it was reported that she had acted, flirting outrageously at all times and in all places with men whose companionship was detrimental to any woman's good name? Why had she been planning for him to marry a girl who was unknown to him? No. He could not understand her in the least. He touched the bell, and when Parsons came he ordered him to put out his dress-coat and gloves. The old man glared at the visitor, for whom he used a title no more distinguished than "that woman," and went off with a bad grace to do his master's bidding. "Parsons doesn't like me in the least," she said with a laugh. "I wonder why?" Though Chisholm knew the reason, he only smiled, and turned aside the rather awkward question. Then, when the old man had put his head into the room, announcing that his master's coat was ready, Claudia Nevill was left alone. "I wonder what's on his mind?" she mused, sinking into a low chair before the fire and resting her elbows upon her knees. "Something unusual has certainly occurred. I wonder what story has come to his ears?--something about me, of course." The white forehead so beautifully shaded by her dark hair, which had been well dressed by her French maid, Justine, clouded slightly, and she stared straight before her, plunged in a deep reverie; she was indeed a voluptuous _reveuse_. Life that was _comme il faut_ had no attraction for her. She was reflecting upon all that he had said; upon the harsh criticisms and the ominous warnings of this man whom she had once believed she would marry. Yes, what he had said was only too true. Her conscience told her that she had been at fault; that she had set his affection at nought, and had, in her mad struggle for supremacy in society, flung prudence to the winds. And those ugly scandals whispered here and there? What of them? The mere thought of them caused her teeth to set firmly, and her shapely hands to clasp her cheeks with sudden vehemence.