and by a sort of blind and desperate effort I resisted. And all
the time she was repeating with nervous insistence:

"But it is true that you will go. You will surely. Not because of
those people but because of me. You will go away because you feel

you must."
With every word urging me to get away, her clasp tightened, she

hugged my head closer to her breast. I submitted, knowing well
that I could free myself by one more effort which it was in my

power to make. But before I made it, in a sort of desperation, I
pressed a long kiss into the hollow of her throat. And lo - there

was no need for any effort. With a stifled cry of surprise her
arms fell off me as if she had been shot. I must have been giddy,

and perhaps we both were giddy, but the next thing I knew there was
a good foot of space between us in the peaceful glow of the ground-

glass globes, in the everlastingstillness of the winged figures.
Something in the quality of her exclamation, something utterly

unexpected, something I had never heard before, and also the way
she was looking at me with a sort of incredulous, concentrated

attention, disconcerted me exceedingly. I knew perfectly well what
I had done and yet I felt that I didn't understand what had

happened. I became suddenly abashed and I muttered that I had
better go and dismiss that poor Dominic. She made no answer, gave

no sign. She stood there lost in a vision - or was it a sensation?
- of the most absorbing kind. I hurried out into the hall,

shamefaced, as if I were making my escape while she wasn't looking.
And yet I felt her looking fixedly at me, with a sort of

stupefaction on her features - in her whole attitude - as though
she had never even heard of such a thing as a kiss in her life.

A dim lamp (of Pompeiian form) hanging on a long chain left the
hall practically dark. Dominic, advancing towards me from a

distant corner, was but a little more opaque shadow than the
others. He had expected me on board every moment till about three

o'clock, but as I didn't turn up and gave no sign of life in any
other way he started on his hunt. He sought news of me from the

garcons at the various cafes, from the cochers de fiacre in front
of the Exchange, from the tobacconist lady at the counter of the

fashionable Debit de Tabac, from the old man who sold papers
outside the cercle, and from the flower-girl at the door of the

fashionable restaurant where I had my table. That young woman,
whose business name was Irma, had come on duty about mid-day. She

said to Dominic: "I think I've seen all his friends this morning
but I haven't seen him for a week. What has become of him?"

"That's exactly what I want to know," Dominic replied in a fury and
then went back to the harbour on the chance that I might have

called either on board or at Madame Leonore's cafe.
I expressed to him my surprise that he should fuss about me like an

old hen over a chick. It wasn't like him at all. And he said that
"en effet" it was Madame Leonore who wouldn't give him any peace.

He hoped I wouldn't mind, it was best to humour women in little
things; and so he started off again, made straight for the street

of the Consuls, was told there that I wasn't at home but the woman
of the house looked so funny that he didn't know what to make of

it. Therefore, after some hesitation, he took the liberty to
inquire at this house, too, and being told that I couldn't be

disturbed, had made up his mind not to go on board without actually
setting his eyes on me and hearing from my own lips that nothing

was changed as to sailing orders.
"There is nothing changed, Dominic," I said.

"No change of any sort?" he insisted, looking very sombre and
speaking gloomily from under his black moustaches in the dim glow

of the alabaster lamp hanging above his head. He peered at me in
an extraordinary manner as if he wanted to make sure that I had all

my limbs about me. I asked him to call for my bag at the other
house, on his way to the harbour, and he departed reassured, not,

however, without remarking ironically that ever since she saw that
American cavalier Madame Leonore was not easy in her mind about me.

As I stood alone in the hall, without a sound of any sort, Rose
appeared before me.

"Monsieur will dine after all," she whispered calmly,
"My good girl, I am going to sea to-night."

"What am I going to do with Madame?" she murmured to herself. "She
will insist on returning to Paris."

"Oh, have you heard of it?"
"I never get more than two hours' notice," she said. "But I know

how it will be," her voice lost its calmness. "I can look after
Madame up to a certain point but I cannot be altogether

responsible. There is a dangerous person who is everlastingly
trying to see Madame alone. I have managed to keep him off several

times but there is a beastly old journalist who is encouraging him
in his attempts, and I daren't even speak to Madame about it."

"What sort of person do you mean?"
"Why, a man," she said scornfully.

I snatched up my coat and hat.
"Aren't there dozens of them?"

"Oh! But this one is dangerous. Madame must have given him a hold
on her in some way. I ought not to talk like this about Madame and

I wouldn't to anybody but Monsieur. I am always on the watch, but
what is a poor girl to do? . . . Isn't Monsieur going back to

Madame?"
"No, I am not going back. Not this time." A mist seemed to fall

before my eyes. I could hardly see the girl standing by the closed
door of the Pempeiian room with extended hand, as if turned to

stone. But my voice was firm enough. "Not this time," I repeated,
and became aware of the great noise of the wind amongst the trees,

with the lashing of a rain squall against the door.
"Perhaps some other time," I added.

I heard her say twice to herself: "Mon Dieu! Mon, Dieu!" and then
a dismayed: "What can Monsieur expect me to do?" But I had to

appear insensible to her distress and that not altogether because,
in fact, I had no option but to go away. I remember also a

distinct wilfulness in my attitude and something half-contemptuous
in my words as I laid my hand on the knob of the front door.

"You will tell Madame that I am gone. It will please her. Tell
her that I am gone - heroically."

Rose had come up close to me. She met my words by a despairing
outward movement of her hands as though she were giving everything

up.
"I see it clearly now that Madame has no friends," she declared

with such a force of restrained bitterness that it nearly made me
pause. But the very obscurity of actuating motives drove me on and

I stepped out through the doorway muttering: "Everything is as
Madame wishes it."

She shot at me a swift: "You should resist," of an extraordinary
intensity, but I strode on down the path. Then Rose's schooled

temper gave way at last and I heard her angry voice screaming after
me furiously through the wind and rain: "No! Madame has no

friends. Not one!"
PART FIVE

CHAPTER I
That night I didn't get on board till just before midnight and

Dominic could not conceal his relief at having me safely there.
Why he should have been so uneasy it was impossible to say but at

the time I had a sort of impression that my inner destruction (it
was nothing less) had affected my appearance, that my doom was as

it were written on my face. I was a mere receptacle for dust and
ashes, a living testimony to the vanity of all things. My very

thoughts were like a ghostlyrustle of dead leaves. But we had an
extremely successful trip, and for most of the time Dominic

displayed an unwonted jocularity of a dry and biting kind with
which, he maintained, he had been infected by no other person than