Her ears had not deceived her, it was Hepworth's ring—and the echo of Eugene's retreating footsteps had barely died away before a maid drew a curtain and Hepworth crossed the threshold.
If he upon his arrival had at once noticed a subtle but marked change in Perdita, she now was struck by an equally vital and informing alteration in him. He had always seemed to her before as one who leaned back in an automobile and merely dictated the directions the chauffeur was to take, but now he was the man who was driving his car himself, at unlawful speed, and keeping quite cool and collected during the performance.
He took the chair opposite the one in which she had seated herself, and she noticed a flicker of a smile across his face as his eye caught the amulet hung about her neck, a tender, humorous, sad little smile.
"Yes, I am still wearing it," she said, as if in answer to some question of his, "and I have had the box containing the others brought down here. It is there on that table in the corner." She spoke with a bravado which only half concealed her embarrassment.
He glanced toward it indifferently. "Then we will fasten my new one in the space left vacant by yours," his swift, delightful smile came and went, transforming his face for the moment like a gleam of sunlight, but although brilliant, it was sad, sad as all regret, and Dita, seeing it, felt some wild, momentary impulse to beseech forgiveness, she could not tell exactly for what.
The amulet, her old bit of crystal, was swinging at the end of a long chain, and, a little embarrassed, she lifted it in her hand and gazed at it mechanically, turning it this way and that to catch the different reflections of light.
"Did you know that we are lawbreakers, you and I, Dita?" asked Hepworth with another smile, "meeting to discuss the details of a properly arranged divorce? Well, my dear, it will not rest particularly heavy on my conscience if it makes things easier for you in the least degree. Your lawyers will instruct you just what to do, but there is one matter which I wish to discuss with you personally, and that is some settlements.
"Why, Dita," breaking off sharply and starting to his feet, "what is the matter? Are you ill?"
Indeed he was justified in thinking so. She had grown white as snow. The color had left even her lips.
"No," she spoke with an effort, but she lifted her head, as if by main strength of will. "No," and he was infinitely relieved to see a bit of color creep back into her lips, but the eyes she courageously raised to his were dark with an emotion which he could only translate as fear or horror, he could not tell which.