She stopped playing and sat perfectly still.

“Aren’t you a little impatient, Hilary? You seem to forget I have a husband.”

“Husband!” he laughed loudly. “I thought you, too, had forgotten that by this time.”

“I haven’t,” she said.

“Well, it must be an unpleasant memory—the most beautiful woman in London wedded to a cowpuncher! Angela, are you going to waste your life tied to an undesirable? Here is love and devotion waiting.... I haven’t all the gold in the universe, but doesn’t breeding count?”

“Hilary, you are talking the veriest nonsense.”

“Am I? Then why did you ask me here to-night? You knew I would talk this nonsense, and yet you asked me.”

“I was lonely—that’s all.”

She stood up and pushed the stool aside. Her shoulder came up against him. In a moment he seized her arm and held her in a passionate embrace.

“Hilary!”