"Think?" he answered. "She can jolly well think what she likes."

"I don't much mind what she thinks," Peggy said; "but I'll bet she's put some rotten idea into Ellerdine's head. Colling, I don't like her--really I don't."

Although Peggy did not notice it, the man's voice became slightly strained. The lips a.s.sumed an appearance of somewhat exaggerated indifference, but there was a glint of watchfulness in the eyes.

"You don't like Lady Attwill?" he said.

"That's it," Peggy replied. "Where does she get her money from?"

Collingwood started slightly. The girl did not notice it. "I don't know," he said a little uneasily.

"Is that true, Colling?" Peggy asked, with mischief in her eyes.

"By the way, has she any?" Collingwood asked.

"Well, if she hasn't, how does she do it?"

"By her wits, my dear."

"Ellerdine doesn't go in for wits," Peggy remarked.

"Poor, dear d.i.c.ky! he is the diplomatic failure of the century."

"I suppose he is, but it is an ill wind that blows n.o.body good. The Empire's loss is Attwill's gain."

Collingwood laughed. "Well," he said, "she's the only post he has been able to keep."

"I don't know that he can afford to keep anything. Can he be in love with her, do you think?"

Collingwood puffed slowly at his cigarette.

"My dear Peggy," he said, looking her up and down with a curious meditative gaze--"my dear Peggy, if a man loves a woman he doesn't leave a comfortable hotel to travel all night in a slow train with her.

Ellerdine is as likely to spend his money on a home for lost cats as on the Attwill."

"She's a very attractive cat," Peggy said.

"He doesn't care two straws about her," Collingwood replied quite definitely.

"Then why did he come?"

"To please you--for no other reason."

"Anyway, I don't like her," Peggy said. "Do you? I believe you do, Colling."

Collingwood jumped up from the sofa. "Now, stop that, Peggy," he said.

The glint of mischief in Peggy's eyes glowed more strongly. "She's a very attractive woman," she said.

"Well, she's not the sort of woman who attracts me," Collingwood replied, sitting down again upon the couch and tapping impatiently with his foot upon the carpet. He seemed disturbed, uneasy, under the influence of some suppressed emotion.

Peggy stroked her nose with one little finger, and then she leant down towards Collingwood. "What sort of woman attracts you?" she said in a low voice.

Again the man jumped up, and a keen observer would have noticed that tiny beads of perspiration had come out upon his forehead like seed pearls.

"Peggy," he cried, "you are a tantalising little fiend!"

Peggy shook with laughter. She was absolutely happy. "I suppose I ought not to have said that," she bubbled.

"Why not?" he asked, and into his voice came something of deep yearning, and the note of pa.s.sion restrained till now, broke through all reserves and all defences at last.

"Why not?" he said. Again his voice grew in emotional force and power.

"Why not, Peggy? I love you when you are in this mood. I love you in all your moods, dear."

Peggy slid down from the end of the sofa and moved a little way towards the door of her bedroom. "What about that cigarette?" she asked, and there was a distinct note of nervousness in her voice.

She had provoked the beginnings of pa.s.sion, and, having done so, womanlike, she was startled and afraid.

"Cigarette," he said. "Oh, I haven't finished it yet. But listen! Peggy darling, you must listen!"

She was really startled now. "Not to-night, Colling; you promised," she said. "Now, Colling, go--please go!"

"I can't go, Peggy; I love you so!" he answered.

"Please, Colling, don't talk like that!"

Now his voice became almost dogged, though it lost nothing of its power.

"I can't help it," he said; "I love you!"

The girl clutched nervously at her tea-gown and shrank back nearer yet to the door.

"Don't talk of love," she said in a low voice.

He took three quick steps up to her, and again she shrank away, not this time into the sure defence of her bedroom, but towards the window.

"Don't talk of love?" he said, and his voice reverberated and rang with feeling. "Why not? It is in the air--the very night is charged with love. You cannot look out on a night like this and not think of love."

"Don't, Colling; you frighten me," she said.

"Oh, but why should my love frighten you, my Peggy? My darling, it is brightness, tenderness, and love that you want. I know how monotonous and dull your life must be. Good G.o.d! don't I know it? Am I not always thinking of it? Poor little b.u.t.terfly! What a flutter you make to be free, to warm your dainty wings in sunny places! Peggy, sweetheart, I want to show you the sunny places."

"Please go, Colling!" she said, and her flute-like voice was tremulous with fear. "Please go, Colling! It isn't fair. I am afraid. You see, I am so fond of you, and I am such a _little_ b.u.t.terfly!"

He held out his hands towards her, palms upwards, with a curious foreign gesture which showed how greatly he was moved. "I can't go, Peggy," he said. "I want you so badly--want you for my own--to-night--to-morrow, all the nights and all the days. I have been very good. I have always done what you have told me. I have come and gone just exactly as the whim has struck you. Ah! you know how deeply, how dearly I love you!"

She moved past him with a sudden, gliding step, and placed the settee between them.

"I only know you are my friend, my very dear friend," she said.