“I heard you call his name,” said Ralph Loyalty hoarsely from the door. “Have you quarrelled? D’you mean to say he’s gone for good?” He came towards her as he spoke. But this was not the Ralph she knew, this was not the Ralph who had lived and died, this was a man with a furious face. He advanced on her. Her knees trembled, and she would have fallen but for a hand on the back of the sofa. “D’you mean to say he’s gone for good?” he repeated again furiously. She nodded dumbly. She was going to faint. Then Ralph Loyalty said a wicked word. “D’you mean to say that I’ve been shamming dead in a damned uncomfortable position for the last two hours for nothing?” he bawled at her. “Here have I been for months and months throwing you at each other’s heads and neither of you with the pluck to show your hand!” And he cursed the name of Hugo Carr for the name of a fool and a coward. She was going to faint. He controlled himself a little. He appealed to her. “I didn’t want to hurt your feelings, you see, Joan. I knew how you’d loved me for years, and I couldn’t bear to hurt you, but I’d have given anything to let you see I wanted my freedom to marry someone else. And when I saw that you liked being with Hugo I thought there might be a chance of your liking him instead of me, and so I did my best to throw you together. But Hugo always was a coward--and as I couldn’t bear going on as we were for another night I arranged this thing to-night, thinking that if anything would make Hugo show his hand or would throw you into Hugo’s arms, this would.” And again he said a wicked word. “I didn’t want to hurt you, you see, Joan, and so I thought this would be the best way--and now the silly ass has gone and left us stranded....” That was the night the nightingale sang in Berkeley Square. A nightingale has never sung in Berkeley Square before, and may never sing there again, but if it does it will probably _mean_ something. III: THE HUNTER AFTER WILD BEASTS I Out of his loneliness, Aubrey Carlyle told me this story one night: not at Malmanor Park, where, with his sister Esther as hostess, he has entertained us all so often, for he said that he could not have told me this story at Malmanor, but in the library of his house in London. Aubrey Carlyle, who is a man of middle years, had never told this story to any one before, and I can only think he told it to me because I had been a great friend to his wife Gloria. I have not seen Gloria Carlyle for three years, though I have very often wished to, for she is a lady of uncommon quality and was a very loyal friend. Of her George Tarlyon once said that she was a gentleman among women; “And that is a very rare thing,” added Shelmerdene, “for the only advantage most women have over men is in the fact that they are not gentlemen.” But that is as it may be.