The spring was touching Europe with its wings; and here already the
summer was bursting the seed pods, the sap breaking impatiently through
the branches. All the wet warmth of the brief African blooming ran riot
in thickening leaf. The objective of Jack's life, influenced as he was
by the air, was Victoria and the ever more consuming love he bore her;
the minutes only counted when he was by her side, watching her every
movement, inhaling, touching her. All his energies seem to have been
driven into this narrow channel. He was ready to move or to remain as
Victoria might direct; he spoke little, he basked. Thus he agreed to
extending their stay for a month; he agreed to shorten it by a fortnight
when Victoria, suddenly realising that her life force was wasting away
in this enervating atmosphere, decided to go home.

Victoria's progress to London was like the march of a conqueror. She
stopped in Paris to renew her clothes. There Jack knew hours of waiting
in the hired victoria while his queen was trying on frocks. He showed
such a childish joy in it all that she indulged her fancy, her every
whim; dresses, wraps, lace veils, furs, hats massive with ostrich
feathers, aigrettes, delicate kid boots, gilt shoes, amassed in their
suite. Jack egged her on; he rioted too. Often he would stop the
victoria and rush into a shop if he saw something he liked in the
window, and in a few minutes return with it, excitedly demanding praise.
He did not seem to understand or care for money, to have any wants
except cigarettes. He followed, and in his beautiful dog-like eyes
devotion daily grew.

They entered London on a bustling April day. A biting east wind carried
rain drops and sunshine. As it stung her face and whipped her blood,
Victoria found the old fierce soul reincarnating itself in her. She
opened her mouth to take in the cold English air, to bend herself for
the finishing of her task.

CHAPTER XVII

IT was in London that the real battle began. In Algiers the scented
winds made hideous and unnatural all thoughts of gain. On arriving in
London Victoria ascertained with a thrill of pleasure that her bank had
received a thousand pounds since October. After disposing of a few small
debts and renewing some trifles in the house, she found herself a
capitalist: she had about fifteen hundred pounds of her own. The money
was lying at the bank and it only struck her then that the time had come
to invest it. Her interview wit