"Never! Never!" she cried fiercely. "I should curse you for ever ... I.... And so he is not married?" she said in an ordinary voice.
"No, nor ever will be, till he finds the woman of his dreams, according to his own tale."
Suddenly she rose from her chair.
"Good-bye ... I must go now ... I want to be alone ... I want rest ... I must think. Forgive me for leaving you like this—" She went away, down the long, well-filled room, and every feminine eye raked her from stem to stern, and every man strained the ligaments of his throat to breaking-point to catch the last flick of her lilac-coloured draperies.
Afterwards, every eye severely considered Bramham. He found himself staring at two coffee-cups. A waiter at his elbow rudely inquired whether the lady took sugar.
"Yes, two—all ladies do," he answered aggressively. To conceal his discomfort he fell to perusal of the packet of papers she had put into his hands. They were from managers, agents, and publishers, and concerned themselves with contracts, royalties, and demands for the first refusal of the next work of Miss Rosalind Chard, otherwise Eve Destiny. Bramham became so engrossed at last that he forgot all the staring people in the room and the two coffee-cups and his discomfort.
"She's a genius, by Jove!" he said grimly. "One must get used to being made uncomfortable."
CHAPTER XXII
IT was a turgid, sun-smitten Sunday afternoon at the Portals' house on the Berea. Through the open French windows of the drawing-room came the chink of many tea-cups, and a desultory but not unsprightly murmur of conversation. Some one's hand was straying absent-mindedly on the keys of the Bechstein, making little ripples, and sometimes a girl would laugh on two notes—a short, but peculiarly melodious sound like the beginning of a song in a bird's throat. Evelyn Carson, on the west side of the verandah, arguing with Bill Portal about water-fowl in Madagascar, found that laugh curiously distracting. It reminded him of an old dream that he was always trying to forget.