“Ah!” she said simply.
“You haven’t a fancy to become Comtesse de Passavant, have you?”
At this Lilian flung herself back with a burst of laughter.
“Oh, oh, my dear friend! The fact is I have a vague recollection that I’ve mislaid a husband somewhere or other in England. What! I never told you?”
“Not that I remember.”
“You might have guessed it; as a rule a Lady’s accompanied by a Lord.”
The Comte de Passavant, who had never had much faith in the authenticity of his friend’s title, smiled. She went on: “Is it to cloak your own life, that you’ve taken it into your head to propose such a thing to me? No, my dear friend, no. Let’s stay as we are. Friends, eh?” And she held out her hand, which he kissed.
“Ah! Ah! I thought as much,” cried Vincent, as he came into the room. “The traitor! He has dressed!”
“Yes, I had promised not to change, so as to keep him in countenance,” said Robert. “I’m sorry, my dear fellow, but I suddenly remembered I was in mourning.”
Vincent held his head high. An air of triumph and of joy breathed from his whole person. At his arrival, Lilian had sprung to her feet. She looked him up and down for a moment, then rushed joyously at Robert and began belabouring his back with her fists, jumping, dancing and exclaiming as she did so. (Lilian irritates me rather when she puts on this affectation of childishness.)
“He has lost his bet! He has lost his bet!”
“What bet?” asked Vincent.
“He had bet that you would lose your money again tonight. Tell us! Quickly! You’ve won. How much?”
“I have had the extraordinary courage—and virtue—to leave off at fifty thousand and come away.”
Lilian gave a roar of delight.
“Bravo! Bravo! Bravo!” she cried. Then she flung her arms round Vincent’s neck. From head to foot, he felt her glowing, lissom body, with its strange perfume of sandalwood, pressed against his own; and Lilian kissed him on the forehead, on the cheeks, on the lips. Vincent staggered and freed himself. He took a bundle of banknotes out of his pocket.
“Here! take back what you advanced me,” he said, holding out five of them to Robert.
“No,” answered Robert. “It is to Lady Lilian that you owe them now.” And he handed her the notes, which she flung on to the divan. She was panting. She went out on the terrace to breathe. It was that ambiguous hour when night is drawing to an end, and the devil casts up his accounts. Outside not a sound was to be heard. Vincent had seated himself on the divan. Lilian turned towards him:
“And now, what do you mean to do?” she asked; and for the first time she called him “thou.”
He put his head between his hands and said with a kind of sob:
“I don’t know.”
Lilian went up to him and put her hand on his forehead; he raised it and his eyes were dry and burning.
“In the meantime, we’ll drink each other’s health,” said she, and she filled the three glasses with Tokay. After they had drunk:
“Now you must go. It’s late and I’m tired out.” She accompanied them into the antechamber and then, as Robert went out first, she slipped a little metal object into Vincent’s hand. “Go out with him,” she whispered, “and come back in a quarter of an hour.”
In the antechamber a footman was dozing. She shook him by the arm.
“Light these gentlemen downstairs,” she said.
The staircase was dark. It would have been a simple matter, no doubt, to make use of electric light, but she made it a point that her visitors should always be shown out by a servant.
The footman lighted the candles in a big candelabra, which he held high above him and preceded Robert and Vincent downstairs. Robert’s car was waiting outside the door, which the footman shut behind them.
“I think I shall walk home. I need a little exercise to steady my nerves,” said Vincent, as the other opened the door of the motor and signed to him to get in.
“Don’t you really want me to take you home?” And Robert suddenly seized Vincent’s left hand, which he was holding shut. “Open your hand! Come! Show us what you’ve got there!”
Vincent was simpleton enough to be afraid of Robert’s jealousy. He blushed as he loosened his fingers and a little key fell on to the pavement. Robert picked it up at once, looked at it and gave it back to Vincent with a laugh.
“Ho! Ho!” he said and shrugged his shoulders. Then as he was getting into his car, he turned back to Vincent, who was standing there looking a little foolish:
“It’s Thursday morning. Tell your brother that I expect him this afternoon at four o’clock.” And he shut the door of the carriage quickly without giving Vincent time to answer.
The car went off. Vincent walked a few paces along the quay, crossed the Seine, and went on till he reached the part of the Tuileries which lies outside the railings; going up to the little fountain, he soaked his handkerchief in the water and pressed it on to his forehead and his temples. Then, slowly, he walked back towards Lilian’s house. There let us leave him, while the devil watches him with amusement as he noiselessly slips the little key into the keyhole. …
It is at this same hour that Laura, his yesterday’s mistress, is at last dropping off to sleep in her gloomy little hotel room, after having long wept, long bemoaned herself. On the deck of the ship which is bringing him back to France, Edouard, in the first light of the dawn, is rereading her letter—the plaintive letter in which she appeals for help. The gentle shores of his native land are already in sight, though scarcely visible through the morning mist to any but a practised eye. Not
