They found a window table and Lane ordered tea. Fedora was inclined to be silent at first, but Lady Weybourne was quite content to chatter. By degrees Fedora, too, came back to earth and they had a very gay little tea-party. At the end of it they all strolled back into the rooms together. Fedora glanced at the watch upon her wrist and held out her hand to Lady Weybourne.
"I am sorry," she said, "but I must hurry away now. It is very kind of you to ask me to come and see you, Lady Weybourne. I shall be charmed."
Richard ignored her fingers.
"I am going to see you down to your car, if I may," he begged.
They left the room together. She looked at him as they descended the stairs, almost tremulously.
"This doesn't mean, you know," she said, "that I—that I agree to all you have been saying."
"It needn't mean anything at all, dear," he replied. "This is only the beginning. I don't expect you to realise all that I have realised quite so quickly, but I do want you to keep it in your mind that this thing has come and that it can't be got rid of. I won't do anything foolish. If it is necessary I will wait, but I am your lover now, as I always must be."
He handed her into the car, the footman, in his long white livery, standing somberly on one side. As they drove off she gave him her fingers, and he walked back up the steps with the smile upon his lips that comes to a man only once or twice in his lifetime.