"I want to say two words in his ear; after which I shall vanish and make room for my betters."
Miss Van Brock was gazing steadfastly at the impassioned face lighted by the piano candles.
"Is it about Miss Brentwood?" she asked abruptly.
"In a way—yes," he confessed.
She rose and stood beside him—a bewitching figure of a woman who knew her part in the human comedy and played it well.
"Is it wise, David?" she asked softly. "I am not denying the possibilities: you might come between them if you should try—I'm rather afraid you could. But you mustn't, you know; it's too late. You've marred her, between you; or rather that convention, which makes a woman deaf, blind and dumb until a man has fairly committed himself, has marred her. For your sake she can never be quite all she ought to be to him: for his sake she could never be quite the same to you."
He drew apart from her, frowning.
"If I should say that I don't fully understand what you mean?" he rejoined.
"I should retort by saying something extremely uncomplimentary about your lack of perspicacity," she cut in maliciously.
"I beg pardon," he said, a little stiffly. "You are laboring under an entirely wrong impression. What I have to say to Mr. Brookes Ormsby does not remotely concern the matter you touch upon. It's an affair of the Stock Exchange."