“The ways of God are strange.”

He heard movements and a slight cough in the next room, the door leading to which was ajar.  Concepcion’s cough; he thought he recognised it.  Five minutes ago he had had no notion of seeing her; now he was about to see her.  And he felt excited and troubled, as much by the sudden violence of life as by the mere prospect of the meeting.  After her husband’s death Concepcion had soon withdrawn from London.  A large engineering firm on the Clyde, one of the heads of which happened to be constitutionally a pioneer, was establishing a canteen for its workmen, and Concepcion, the tentacles of whose influence would stretch to any length, had decided that she ought to take up canteen work, and in particular the canteen work of just that firm.  But first of all, to strengthen her prestige and acquire new prestige, she had gone to the United States, with a powerful introduction to Sears, Roebuck and Company of Chicago, in order to study industrial canteenism in its most advanced and intricate manifestations.  Portraits of Concepcion in splendid furs on the deck of the steamer in the act of preparing to study industrial canteenism in its most advanced and intricate manifestations had appeared in the illustrated weeklies.  The luxurious trip had cost several hundreds of pounds, but it was war expenditure, and, moreover, Concepcion had come into considerable sums of money through her deceased husband.  Her return to Britain had never been published.  Advertisements of Concepcion ceased.  Only a few friends knew that she was in the most active retirement on the Clyde.  G.J. had written to her twice but had obtained no replies.  One fact he knew, that she had not had a child.  Lady Queenie had not mentioned her; it was understood that the inseparables had quarrelled in the heroic manner and separated for ever.

She entered the boudoir slowly.  G.J. grew self-conscious, as it were because she was still the martyr of destiny and he was not.  She wore a lavender-tinted gown of Queen’s; he knew it was Queen’s because he had seen precisely such a gown on Queen, and there could not possibly be another gown precisely like that very challenging gown.  It suited Queen, but it did not suit Concepcion.  She looked older; she was thirty-two, and might have been taken for thirty-five.  She was very pale, with immense fatigued eyes; but her ridiculous nose had preserved all its originality.  And she had the same slightly masculine air—­perhaps somewhat intensified—­with an added dignity.  And G.J. thought:  “She is as mysterious and unfathomable as I am myself.”  And he was impressed and perturbed.

With a faint, sardonic smile, glancing at him as a physical equal from her unusual height (she was as tall as Lady Queenie), she said abruptly and casually: 

“Am I changed?”

“No,” he replied as abruptly and casually, clasping almost inimically her ringed hand—­she was wearing Queenie’s rings.  “But you’re tired.  The journey, I suppose.”