Among them were
the two men of the trio. The old woman had evidently gone into hiding.

As Lady Sellingworth conversed with her colonel she made time, as a
woman can, for a careful and detailed consideration of the man on whom
her thoughts were concentrated. Although he did not look at her as he
passed up and down the deck, she knew that he had seen where she was
sitting. And, without letting the colonel see what she was doing, she
followed the tall, athletic figure in the long, rough, greenish-brown
overcoat with her eyes, looking away when it drew very near to her. And
now and then she looked at its companion.

In the Paris _rapide_ she was again alone in a carriage reserved for
her. She did not go into the restaurant to lunch, as she hated eating in
a crowd. Instead, her maid brought her a luncheon basket which had
been supplied by the chef in Berkeley Square. After eating she smoked a
cigarette and read the French papers which she had bought at the Calais
station. And then she sat still and looked out of the window, and
thought and dreamed and wondered and desired.

Although she did not know it, she was living through almost the last
of those dreams which are the rightful property of youth, but which
sometimes, obstinate and deceitful, haunt elderly minds, usually to
their undoing.

The light began to fade and the dream to become more actual. She lived
again as she had lived in the days when she was a reigning beauty,
when there was no question of her having to seek for the joys and the
adventures of life. In the twilight of France she reigned.

A shadow passed by in the corridor. She had scarcely seen it. Rather
she had felt its passing. But the dream was gone. She was alert, tense,
expectant. Paris was near. And he was near. She linked the two together
in her mind. And she felt that she was drawing close to a climax in
her life. A conviction took hold of her that some big, some determining
event was going to happen in Paris, that she would return to London
different--a changed woman.

Happiness changes! She was travelling in search of happiness. The wild
blood in her leaped at the thought of grasping happiness. And she felt
reckless. She would dare all, would do anything, if only she
might capture happiness. Dignity, self-respect, propriety, the
conventions--what value had they really? To bow down to them--does that
bring happiness? Out of the way with them, and a straight course for
the human satisfaction