“That girl is marked for destruction,” she said slowly; “the gods have done their work already.”

But whatever Alixe had been, whatever she now was, she showed to her little world only a pale brunette symmetry—­a strange and changeless lustre, varying as little as the moon’s phases; and like that burnt-out planet, reflecting any flame that flared until her clear, young beauty seemed pulsating with the promise of hidden fire.

Selwyn, outwardly amiable and formal, was saying in a low voice:  “My dinner partner is quite impossible, you see; and I happen to be here as a filler in—­commanded to the presence only a few minutes ago.  It’s a pardonable error; I bear no malice.  But I’m sorry for you.”

There was a silence; Alixe straightened her slim figure, and turned; but young Innis, who had taken her in, had become confidential with Mrs. Fane.  As for Selwyn’s partner, she probably divined his conversational designs on her, but she merely turned her bare shoulder a trifle more unmistakably and continued her gossip with Bradley Harmon.

Alixe broke a tiny morsel from her bread, sensible of the tension.

“I suppose,” she said, as though reciting to some new acquaintance an amusing bit of gossip—­“that we are destined to this sort of thing occasionally and had better get used to it.”

“I suppose so.”

“Please,” she added, after a pause, “aid me a little.”

“I will if I can.  What am I to say?”

“Have you nothing to say?” she asked, smiling; “it need not be very civil, you know—­as long as nobody hears you.”

To school his features for the deception of others, to school his voice and manner and at the same time look smilingly into the grave of his youth and hope called for the sort of self-command foreign to his character.  Glancing at him under her smoothly fitted mask of amiability, she slowly grew afraid of the situation—­but not of her ability to sustain her own part.

They exchanged a few meaningless phrases, then she resolutely took young Innis away from Rosamund Fane, leaving Selwyn to count the bubbles in his wine-glass.

But in a few moments, whether by accident or deliberate design, Rosamund interfered again, and Mrs. Ruthven was confronted with the choice of a squabble for possession of young Innis, of conspicuous silence, or of resuming once more with Selwyn.  And she chose the last resort.

“You are living in town?” she asked pleasantly.

“Yes.”

“Of course; I forgot.  I met a man last night who said you had entered the firm of Neergard & Co.”

“I have.  Who was the man?”

“You can never guess, Captain Selwyn.”

“I don’t want to.  Who was he?”

“Please don’t terminate so abruptly the few subjects we have in reserve. 
We may be obliged to talk to each other for a number of minutes if
Rosamund doesn’t let us alone. . . .  The man was ‘Boots’ Lansing.”