But, in spite of her pallor, the dark shadows round her eyes, and that pathetic droop, she was still very beautiful. Pathos became her. Guy Spencer's heart gave a great leap as he saw her. There was about her an overpowering, an irresistible fascination.
She advanced towards him with outstretched hands. She spoke in a broken voice, the perfectly moulded lips trembled:
"It is so sweet of you to come. Of course you have heard? It is all over the town by now. Oh, this thrice-accursed gambling, the love of which induces decent men to cheat, and become outcasts from their world."
She spoke with the deepest emotion, her bosom heaving, her voice broken by the catchings of the breath.
"He was such a good little man, he was always so kind to me," she went on. "And last night those awful happenings. Branded a cheat, he and his friend, and they could not deny it. They had to slink out. I have hardly closed my eyes during the night, Mr. Spencer; my poor cousin is prostrated." She added with a shudder: "My girlhood was passed amidst a gambling set, but I never had an experience like this."
She collected herself, and rang for tea. "You will sit down," she said. "You can understand I should have denied myself to anybody but you, I am so terribly upset. It is still like a nightmare."
Spencer sat down as he was bidden. "I had a visit from Esmond last night," he said briefly. "He came straight on from Elsinore Gardens. He told me what had happened, he told me the whole history of the terrible thing, how he has been making his living by cheating at cards, since he was a young man." Miss Keane raised her hands in mute deprecation. "How awful! That, of course, I did not know. I had a letter from him this morning, apologising, if one can apologise for such a thing, telling me he was going to live abroad under an assumed name. It was a very short letter. His chief concern seemed to be that he had, incidentally, made it unpleasant for Mrs. L'Estrange."
"How does Mrs. L'Estrange take it?"
Miss Keane shrugged her shoulders. "She is a little bit hysterical, you know. One moment, she vows she will shut up the flat and go abroad, for fear of the nasty things that people will say. The next moment, she says that, confident in her perfect innocence, she will stay and face the music, and give her parties as usual."
"Has she asked your advice?" queried Spencer.