t?" she
remarked, "but I hate stairs. Besides, I am going to take you a long,
long way up.... I am not at home this afternoon, Groves."

"Very good, madam," the man answered.

They stepped out into a smaller hall. A dark-featured young woman came
hurrying forward to meet them.

"I shall not need you, Annette," Wilhelmina said. "Go down and see that
they send up tea for two, and telephone to Lady Margaret--say I'm sorry
that I cannot call for her this afternoon."

"Parfaitement, madame," the girl murmured, and hurried away. Wilhelmina
opened the door of a sitting-room--the most wonderful apartment Macheson
had ever seen. A sudden nervousness seized him. He felt his knees
shaking, his heart began to thump, his brain to swim. All at once he
realized where he was! It was not the lady of Thorpe, this! It was the
woman who had come to him with the storm, the woman who had set burning
the flame which had driven him into a new world. He looked around half
wildly! He felt suddenly like a trapped animal. It was no place for him,
this bower of roses and cushions, and all the voluptuous appurtenances
of a chamber subtly and irresistibly feminine! He was bereft of words,
awkward, embarrassed. He longed passionately to escape.

Wilhelmina closed the door and raised her veil. She laid her two hands
upon his shoulders, and looked up at him with a faint but very tender
smile. Her forehead was slightly wrinkled, her fingers seemed to cling
to him, so that her very touch was like a caress! His heart began to
beat madly. The perfume of her clothes, her hair, the violets at her
bosom, were like a new and delicious form of intoxication. The touch of
her fingers became more insistent. She was drawing his face down to
hers.

"I wonder," she murmured, "whether you remember!"

BOOK II

CHAPTER I

RATHER A GHASTLY PART

Mademoiselle Rosine raised her glass. Her big black eyes flashed
unutterable things across the pink roses.

"I think," she said, "that we drink the good health of our host, Meester
Macheson, Meester Victor, is it not?"

"Bravo!" declared a pallid-looking youth, her neighbour at the round
supper table. "By Jove, if we were at the _Cote d'Or_ instead of the
_Warwick_, we'd give him musical honours."

"I drink," Macheson declared, "to all of us who know how to live! Jules,
another magnum, and look sharp."

"Certainly, sir," the man answered.

There flashed a quick look of intelligence between the waiter an