ng until his
companion should become almost unconscious of his movements. Then
gently he moved his right arm from her waist and placed it over her
shoulder. She moved slightly, but it was only to nestle more closely
against him. His dangling fingers moved little by little towards the
opening of her corsage, they descended, and with his thumb and
forefinger he gripped the paper. Madame did not move her body nor, to
Rust, did she seem to suspect his intentions. But her right arm lifted
slowly up, she gently grasped his hand in hers, pressed it kindly for
a moment, and then, still holding it, removed his arm from her
shoulder to her waist. "Your coat sleeve scratches my shoulder," she
murmured. Rust, who had instantly released the paper when Madame took
his hand, never again got an opportunity of touching it, for she kept
her arm pressed over his during the whole time that they sat together.
"I gave him the chance," explained Madame to me, "and it worked
beautifully. But once was enough. From that moment I became really
suspicious of Rust. Before I had only been puzzled. What he was I
could not guess, but I was dead set on finding out before the night
was over. Till then I had allowed only little freedoms, but when I
rose to go into the hotel and he bent over me I let him kiss me on my
lips. It was a severe disappointment, that kiss," added Madame
contemplatively.

"Spare me the loathsome details," said I crossly.

When at last Madame Gilbert went to her room she was smiling gaily and
showing no signs of fatigue at the tiresome exercises of the day.
Though it was approaching midnight the faithful Marie was waiting to
assist her toilet. "Ah, madame," sighed Marie in her frank Parisienne
fashion, "le Capitaine is so beautiful and devoted. He regards you as
one who would devour. I marvel that you have the heart to separate
from him."

"Marie," said Madame, laughing, "you are a naughty girl, a corrupter
of my youthful morals. I am afraid that _le bon Capitaine_ must go
hungry. For--" and then she pranced off upon that wearisome old story
about the blown-up Territorial bore of _le Grand Couronne_. Fidelity
to the scattered corpse of a husband--_un mari assommant, mon Dieu,
pas un amant joyeux_!--seemed to Marie the most wasted of emotions.
She, in common with all the other Frenchmen and women in the hotel,
was an ardent partisan of Captain Rouille.

"If my bell rings in the night, come quickly, Marie," said Madame, as
she