"Matter enough. Brigit is Victor Joyselle's mistress."
He sank into a chair and pressed his thin hands together until the bones cracked.
"Gerald!"
"She is! she is! I have just come from his studio in Chelsea. Followed her there. She was alone with him for over an hour. And when she came out——"
Lady Kingsmead rose and went to him.
"Now listen to me," she said firmly. "You have either been drinking or you are mad. I don't care where you have been or where you saw Brigit. This story is—rot!"
Lady Kingsmead was not a clever woman, but this move on her part, the result not of a virtuous belief in virtue or of a sudden swing of her mental pendulum towards the effective, such as some women have—was amazing in its effect, because it was spontaneous and sincere.
"Will you have something to drink?" she asked.
It was a curious scene; the dainty little room with the swivel-table laid for one, the pretty, well-preserved woman, looking down with real pity but something very near scorn at the broken, haggard, untidy man sprawling in a rose-coloured chair.
"You are a fool, Tony," he said roughly. "I tell you I know."