‘I was just thinking,’ said Alma, with an air of serious deliberation, ’whether it would be worth while for me to turn the tables on her, and prosecute her for slander.’

‘If you take my advice, you’ll keep out of that,’ replied the other, with emphasis.  ’But another thing has occurred to me.  I see your opinion of Mrs. Carnaby, and no doubt you have good reason for it.  Now, would it be possible to frighten her?  Have you’ —­ he peered more keenly —­ ’any evidence that would make things awkward for Mrs. Carnaby?’

Alma kept close lips, breathing rapidly.

‘If you have,’ pursued the other, ’just give her a hint that Mrs Strangeways had better stop talking.  You’ll find it effectual, no doubt.’

He watched her, and tried to interpret the passion in her eyes.

‘If I think it necessary,’ said Alma, and seemed to check herself.

’No need to say any more.  I wished to put you on your guard, that’s all.  We’ve known each other for a longish time, and I’ve often enough felt sorry that something didn’t come off —­ you remember when.  No good talking about that; but I shall always be glad if I can be a friend to you.  And, I say, don’t think any more about that cheque, there’s a good girl.’

The note of familiar patronage was more than distasteful to Alma.

‘I shall, of course, send it,’ she replied curtly.

’As you please.  Would you like to hear a bit from my new opera?  It isn’t every one gets the chance, you know.’

Quite in his old way, he seated himself at the piano, and ran lightly through a few choice morceaux, exacting praise, and showing himself vexed because it was not fervent.  In spite of her wandering thoughts, Alma felt the seductiveness of these melodies —­ their originality, their grace —­ and once more she wondered at their coming from the mind of such a man.

‘Very pretty.’

‘Pretty!’ exclaimed the composer scornfully.  ’It’s a good deal more than that, and you know it.  I don’t care —­ there’s somebody else feels deuced proud of me, and good reason too.  Well, ta-ta!’

There are disadvantages in associating with people whose every word, as likely as not, may be an insidious falsehood.  Thinking over what she had heard from Dymes, Alma was inclined to believe him; on the other hand, she knew it to be quite possible that he sought her with some interested motive.  The wise thing, she knew, would be to disregard his reports, and hold aloof from the world in which they originated.  But she had a strong desire to see Mrs. Strangeways.  There might be someone at the house in Porchester Terrace who could help her to discover its late tenant.  However dangerous the woman’s wiles and slanders, an interview with her could do no harm, and might set at rest a curiosity long lurking, now feverishly stimulated.  With regard to Sibyl, there could be little doubt that Dymes had heard, or conjectured, the truth.  Sibyl was clever enough to make her perilous reverse a starting-point for new social conquests.  Were there but a hope of confronting her with some fatal disclosure, and dragging her down, down!