ness of Rust. She was compelled to be
brutally plain, and so she drove into his thick head the tempting fact
that nothing interposed during the hours of darkness between his eager
hands and the paper which she had taught him to covet. If she awoke
and mistook his motives--if she thought that he had ventured into her
room with designs upon her honour--Rust felt sure that her kind heart
would forgive him, by breakfast-time, though she would certainly
dismiss him from her bedside with the most haughty of reproaches. If
he could not find some other way before they separated for the night,
he had almost decided to essay the venture. She slept very soundly,
said Madame; she had not awakened in her _appartement_ in Paris upon
one night when a bomb from a Prussian aeroplane had exploded within
two hundred yards of her house. Another way was still possible, and
Rust, while he was dressing for dinner, determined to try it; it was a
way, too, which thrilled him with pleasurable anticipation.

At dinner Madame declined champagne, which she said was a poor, feeble
drink. Let them for once share a bottle of sparkling Burgundy, a royal
wine, the Wine of Courage. The patron brought them the bottle himself,
and lamented that they would not indulge themselves in a second.
Madame had no desire that Rust should, under its influence, become too
enterprising. The evening was warm, and afterwards they moved into the
pleasant garden behind the hotel and sat together in a quiet corner.
Other guests were in the garden, but it had become tacitly agreed
among them that Madame and Rust--the "dear French things"--should be
permitted to console one another in seclusion. No one could perceive
that the black-sleeved arm of Rust had found a happy resting-place
around Madame's black-covered waist, or that her glowing head was not
far from his shoulder. Her Paris evening frock was cut low, though
never by the fraction of an inch would Madame permit her _couturier_
to exceed the limits of perfect taste. Looking down over her shoulder
Rust could see, protruding from the white lace below her bodice, the
corner of a paper. She talked little. It seemed to give her pleasure
to lean against his shoulder and dreamily, half asleep, to rest there
reposefully like a tired child. "But, _mon ami"_ said Madame to me in
relating these tender details with the greatest satisfaction, "I was
very wide awake indeed."

Rust eyed that corner of paper and waited without speaki