The dancing began to the strains of the regimental band, and soon the motley throng were all gathered in the ball-room. It did not look like an all-British a.s.sembly, but the nationality of the laughing voices was quite unmistakable. All talked and laughed as they danced, and the hubbub was considerable.

Into it Olga came stealing back, and paused nervously in the doorway to look on. Daisy, dressed as a water-nymph, waved her a gay greeting over her husband's shoulder. Olga smiled and waved back, striving to smother away out of sight the sick fear at her heart.

Someone touched her shoulder, and she started round almost with a cry.

Noel bent to her. "Sorry I made you jump. Look here! There's no one in the ante-room. Come and sit out with me!"

He offered his arm, and she took it thankfully without a word. They went away together.

The ante-room was dimly lighted, and comparatively quiet, though the music and laughter and swish of dancing feet were fully audible there.

Noel found her a comfortable chair, and seated himself upon the arm thereof.

He did not speak at once, but after a little, as Olga sat in silence, he turned and looked down at her.

She raised her eyes at once and smiled. "You must think me very foolish," she said.

"No, I don't," he rejoined bluntly. "That brute is enough to scare any woman. You hate him, don't you?"

There was insistence in his tone, insistence mingled with a touch of anxiety. But Olga did not answer him.

"Don't let us talk about him!" she said, with a shiver she could not repress.

Noel's mouth hardened a little. "I'm very sorry," he said. "But we must. He's been circulating a lot of lies about--Max." He paused an instant, looking straight down at her. "Max is a good chap, you know,"

he said. "It's up to me to defend him."

Olga's face quivered, but she kept her eyes lifted. "You can't," she said, her voice very low.

"Can't I, though?" Hotly he threw back the words. "You don't mean to say you believe it?"

"I know it is true," she said.

"My dear Olga,--" he began.

But she checked him, her hand upon his arm. "Noel," she said, "truly I can't talk about this. But that story is--true, in part at least. Max admitted it--himself--to me."

"Impossible!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Noel.

Her fingers closed over his sleeve; her hold was beseeching. "I can't argue with you, Noel," she said. "But I know it is true. You see, I was there."

He stared at her in stupefaction. "Olga, I can't believe it!"

"It is true," she said again.

"But--" Noel began to waver in spite of himself--"if you were there, you must have known all along!"

Her brows drew into the old lines of perplexity. "You see, I was ill,"

she said. "I--I didn't remember. I don't remember all the details even now. I only know that--it happened. Max told me so--when I asked him."

"Good heavens above!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Noel.

She went on drearily, as if he had not spoken. "That was the end of everything between us; and it's just as well now. For I shouldn't have been able to marry him even if it hadn't been."

"Why not?" said Noel.

She looked away from him, and was silent.

He leaned down towards her, and spoke quickly, urgently.

"Olga dear, forgive me for asking, but I must know. Don't you really love him?"

She made a little unconscious gesture of the hands as of pushing something from her. "No," she said.

"But you did?" he insisted.

She leaned her elbow on her knee, lodging her chin upon her hand. "I thought I did--once," she said slowly. "But--it was a mistake."

"It couldn't have been," he said.

She nodded slowly two or three times, not turning her head. "Yes," she said, with the air of one clinching an argument. "It was a mistake."

Noel was silent for a few moments. There was something in her set profile that hurt him. He longed to see her full face. But she did not move. She seemed almost to have forgotten that he was there.

He moved at last, bending nearer. "Olga!" he whispered.

"Yes?" Still she did not turn.

He slipped down to his knees beside her. "Olga!" he said again very pleadingly.

She stirred then, stirred and looked him full in the eyes. And all his life Noel remembered the awful despair that looked out at him from her soul "I--can't!" she said.

He clasped her two hands between his own. "Can't you even think of it?"

he urged, under his breath. "You know--you said--you'd have married me if--if--poor old Max hadn't come first. I wouldn't cut him out for worlds; but that's happened already, hasn't it? Surely there's no one else?"

But Olga made no answer. Only the despair in her eyes deepened to a dumb agony.

"Darling," he whispered, gathering her hands up and holding them against his face, "I'd be awfully good to you. And I want you--I do want you.

Won't you even consider it?"

A great shiver went through Olga.

"Won't you have my love?" he said.

But still for a little she was silent. It seemed that no words would come.

Then, as he pressed his lips to the hands he had taken, something seemed suddenly to break loose within her. With a great sob she leaned her head upon his shoulder. "Noel! Noel! I--can't!"

His arms clasped her in a moment; he held her close. "Dearest, what is it? Why can't you?"