“Why don’t you snub him?” said Olga, with some impatience.  “It certainly isn’t my fault that he comes here.”

“Allegro, don’t be horrid!  I didn’t refuse to help you when you wanted help.”  There was actually a pleading note in Violet’s voice.

Olga responded to it instantly, with that ready warmth of hers that was the secret of her charm.  “My dear, you know I would do anything in my power for you.  But I can’t—­possibly—­be nice to Major Hunt-Goring.  I do detest him so.”

“You detest Max Wyndham,” said Violet quickly.  “But you manage to be nice to him.”

The words rang almost like an accusation.  For the moment Olga felt quite incapable of replying.  She lay in silence.

“Allegro!” Again she heard that note of pleading, vibrant this time, eager, almost passionate.

With an effort Olga brought herself to answer.  “I’ve changed my mind about him.  We are friends.”

“Friends!” Violet sprang from the bed, and stood tense, quivering, with an arrow-like straightness that made her superb.  Her eyes glittered as she faced the moonlight that poured through the unshaded window.  “Does that mean you—­care for him?” she demanded.

Olga hesitated.  Violet in this mood was utterly unfamiliar to her, a strange and tragic personality before which she felt curiously small and ill at ease, even in some unaccountable fashion guilty.

“Dear, please don’t ask me such startling questions!” she said.  “I can’t possibly answer you.”

“Why not?” said Violet.  Her hands were clenched.  Her whole body seemed to be held in rigid control thereby.

“Because—­” again Olga hesitated, considered, finally broke off lamely “I don’t know.”

“You do know!” There was actual ferocity in the open contradiction.  Violet was directly facing her now.  Her eyes shone so fiercely, so unnaturally, bright that a queer little sensation of doubt pricked Olga for the first time, setting every nerve and every muscle on the alert for she knew not what.  “You do know, Allegro!  And so do I!” The full voice took a deeper note, it throbbed the words.  “Do you think I haven’t watched you, seen what was going on?  Do you think it has all been nothing to me—­nothing to see you spoiling my chances day by day—­nothing to feel you drawing him away from me—­nothing to know—­to know—­” she suddenly flung her clenched hands wide open to the empty moonlight—­“to know that you have set your heart on the only man I ever loved—­you who wanted me to help you to get away from him—­and have shouldered me aside?”

Her voice broke.  She turned to the girl in the bed with eyes grown terrible in their wild anguish of pain.  “Allegro!” she cried.  “Allegro!  Give him up!  Give him up—­if not for my sake—­for your own!  You couldn’t—­be happy—­with him!”

With the words she seemed to crumple as though all power had suddenly left her, and sank downwards upon the floor, huddling against the bed with agonized sobbing, her black head bowed almost to the floor.