"Oh," Cassy gently put in, "I have no one to blame but myself. I ought to have known better."
Jones nodded. "Probably you did know. The misadventure is rare of which we are not warned in advance. We cannot see the future but the future sees us. It sends us messages which we call premonitions."
Instantly Cassy was back in the Tamburini's room, where she had seen both beauty and horror. She had not reached the latter yet and the sudden vision Lennox dissipated.
"Stuff and nonsense! Haven't you anything else to say?"
Amiably Jones turned to him. "I can say that no one is wise on an empty stomach." He turned to Cassy. "The Splendor is not far. Will you dine with us, Mrs. Paliser?"
Violently Lennox repeated it; "Mrs. Paliser! Miss Cara is no more Mrs. Paliser than you are."
"To err is highly literary," Jones with great meekness replied. "I hear that it is even human."
Cassy reached again for the bundle. "It is only natural. If I had been told in advance, I could not have believed it. I could not have believed that mock marriages occur anywhere except in cheap fiction. But we live and unlearn. Now I must run."
Lennox took her hand. "I owe you a debt. Count on me."
He spoke gravely and the gravity of it, the force that he exhaled, comforted Cassy's bruised little heart and the comfort, the first that she had had, made her lip twitch. None of that, though! Reacting she rallied and smiled.