The room had emptied, and Alex saw Queenie deliberately glance over her shoulder, as though to make sure of being unobserved. Her eyes moved unseeingly across Alex and Maurice Goldstein. The rest of the room was empty. With a little half-shrug of her white shoulders she delicately took a cigarette from the case that the diplomat was eagerly proffering.
It was the first time that Alex had seen a woman with a cigarette between her lips. She felt herself colouring hotly, as she watched, with involuntary fascination, Queenie's partner carefully lighting the cigarette for her, his hand very close to her face.
She dared not look at Goldstein. The cheap vulgarity of Queenie's display of modern freedom shocked her sincerely, nor could even her inexperience blind her to the underlying motive governing Queenie's every gesture.
She fumbled hastily for her fan and gloves.
"Shall we come upstairs again?" she asked in a stifled voice.
Goldstein rose without a word.
Alex, venturing to cast one glance at him, saw that his face had grown white.
As he took her back to Lady Isabel, he spoke in a quick, low, dramatic voice between clenched teeth:
"You saw? She knows she is driving me frantic; but after this—it's all over."
Alex was frightened and yet exultant at playing even a secondary rôle in what seemed to her to be a drama of reality.