"I knew that he came to tea here yesterday," said Olga.
"Oh! And how did you find that out?"
"He told me."
"You mean you asked him!"
"Indeed, I didn't!" Olga refuted the charge with indignation. "I don't take the smallest interest in his doings."
"Not really?" Her friend looked at her with a comprehending smile.
"Don't you like the young man?" she enquired.
"I detest him!" Olga declared with vehemence.
Again the slender little finger flicked the ash from the cigarette. "But what a mistake, dear!" murmured the owner thereof. "Young men don't grow on every gooseberry bush. Besides, one can never tell! The object of one's detestation might turn out to be the one and only, and it's so humiliating to have to change one's mind."
"I shall never change mine with regard to Dr. Wyndham," Olga said with great determination. "I should hate him quite as badly even if he were the only man in the world."
But at that the cigarette was suddenly whisked from the soft lips and pointed full at her. "Allegro,"—it was Violet Campion's special name for her, and she uttered it weightily,—"mark my words and ponder them well! You have met your fate!"