But she heard a voice now, a real, vibrant voice.
"Too late?" he questioned. "Too late for what?"
Ethel nodded sadly. "I see, Mr. Lothian," she said, "that you are already beginning to understand that you have to hear things that will distress you."
Lothian bowed. As he did so, something flashed out upon the great bloated mask his face had become. It was for a second only, but it was sweet and chivalrous.
"And will you tell me then, Miss Harrison?" he said in a voice that was beginning to tremble violently. His whole body was beginning to shake, she saw.
With one hand he was opening the button of his fur coat. He looked up at her with a perfectly white, perfectly composed, but dreadfully questioning face.
Certainly his body was shaking all over—it was as though little ripples were running up and down the flesh of it—but his face was a white mask of attention.
"Oh, Mr. Lothian!" the girl cried, "I am so sorry. I am so very sorry for you. You couldn't help loving her perhaps, I am only a girl, I don't pretend to know. But you must be brave. Rita is married!"
Puffed and crinkled lids fell over the staring eyes for a moment—as if automatic pressure had suddenly pushed them down.
"Married? Rita?"