Then Duncombe became grave. His face fell into firm, hard lines. Yet as he spoke there was something boyish about his expression.
"It is a fair question," he answered. "You won't understand me. I don't understand myself. I've a brilliant galaxy of fools behind me. They've made the pages of history interesting. They've been the butt always of wiser men such as you, Spencer. The girl in that room may be Phyllis Poynton or the worst adventuress who ever lied her way through the mazes of intrigue, but I love her! She's in my life--a part of it. If I lose her--well, you know what life is like when the flame has gone and only the embers burn."
"That is sufficient!" he said. "You speak of things that I myself do not understand. But that is nothing. I know that they exist. But----"
"Pelham has no prior claim," he answered. "As soon as she is safe he shall know the whole truth. I would tell him at this moment but that I am a little afraid of him. He would never understand, as we can, the intricacy of the situation. And now--to the prosaic."
"Groves," he told the butler, "I am hungry. Bring me in anything you can rake up for supper on a tray, and a pint of champagne."
Spencer raised his eyebrows and smiled. Duncombe nodded.
"For her, of course," he said. "I am going to take it in, and I want you to stay here. It is past eleven o'clock already."
"I was never," she declared, "quite so pleased to see any one in all my life. I was wondering whether it would occur to you that I was starving."
He set the tray down for her, placed a chair in front of the table, and busied himself opening the wine. All the time he was looking at her.
"Whatever have you been doing to yourself?" he asked at length.
"Oh, I had to amuse myself somehow," she answered. "I've done my hair a new way, rearranged all my ornaments, and really I don't think a man has a right to such a delightful manicure set. I felt terribly nervous in the lavatory, though. I could hear some one in the billiard-room all the time."
"That's all right!" he declared. "I've locked the door there, and have the key in my pocket. No one can get in from that side."
"Please talk, and don't watch me," she begged. "I'm ashamed to be so hungry."
He smiled and helped her to some more chicken. If he talked he was scarcely conscious of what he said. All the time his eyes kept straying towards her. She had taken off her jacket and was dressed simply enough in a blouse of some soft white material and a dark skirt. Everything, from the ornaments at her neck, the dull metal waistband, and the trim shoes, seemed to him to be carefully chosen, and the best of their sort. She wore no rings, and her fingers had the rosy pinkness of health. If she had seemed graceful to him before in the drawing-room of Runton Place, and surrounded by some of the most beautiful women in the country, she seemed more than ever so now, seated in the somewhat worn chair of his little studio. The color, too, seemed to have come back to her cheeks. She seemed to have regained in some measure her girlishness. Her eyes were ever ready to laugh into his. She chattered away as though the world after all contained nothing more serious for her than for any other girl. Duncombe hated to strike another note, yet he knew that sooner or later it must be done.