"I'm sure I wish you every happiness. Only—"
He paused.
"Please finish."
"Nothing—except that you will leave me with an unpleasant sense of having been made a fool of."
She rose, flicked her cigarette into the fire and then turned as if about to speak. But thought better of it. There was a long silence.
"Pierre de Folligny and I are friends of long standing," she said at last. "One marries some day. Why not an old friend? The age of madness passes—I am almost thirty and I have lived—much. It is time—" she finished wearily, "time that I married again. We understand each other perfectly." A smile slowly dawned and broke. "What one wants in a husband is not so much a rhapsodist as a rhymester, not so much a lover as a walking-gentleman—Pierre is that, you know."
She sighed again and rose.
"It was very sweet of you to come in, John. Don't misunderstand me again. That—" and she paused to give the word emphasis, "is all over. I'm quite safe as a confidante. Hermia has treated you very badly, I think. I'd like to tell her so—No? Well, good-bye. Do come in again. I want you to know Pierre better. He really is all that a walking-gentleman should be."
He laughed and kissed her fingers, and in a moment had gone.
Olga Tcherny stood immovable where he had left her, one foot upon the fender, her gaze upon the fire. After a time she stretched forth her fingers to the blaze. All over! She straightened slowly and caught a glimpse of her face in the mirror. The firelight gleamed under her brows, brought out with unpleasant sharpness the angle of her jaw and touched the bones of her cheek caressingly. She looked again, the truth compelling her, and then buried her face in her arm. The truth—middle age, had set its first mark upon her. The sallow fingers of Time had touched her lightly, more as a warning than as a prophecy, painted with a reluctant brush a deeper tone into the shadows, a higher note in the lights, had brushed in haltingly the false values that now mocked at her. Time! She seemed to count it by her heart-throbs.