Monte sat down at the writing-desk and seized a pen.

_Dear Marjory_ [he began]: Something has come up unexpectedly that
makes it necessary for me to take an early train for England. I can't
tell how long I shall be gone, but that of course is not important. I
hope you will go on to Etois, as we had planned; or, at any rate, leave
Paris. Somehow, I feel that you belong out under the blue sky and not
in town.

He paused a moment and read over that last sentence. Then he scratched
it out. Then he tore up the whole letter.

What he had to say should be not written. He must meet her in the
morning and tell her like a man.

CHAPTER XI

A CANCELED RESERVATION

Though it was late when he retired, Monte found himself wide awake at
half past seven. Springing from bed, he took his cold tub, shaved, and
after dressing proceeded to pack his bags. The process was simple; he
called the hotel valet, gave the order to have them ready as soon as
possible, and went below. From the office he telephoned upstairs to
Marie, and learned that madame would meet him in the breakfast-room at
nine. This left him a half-hour in which to pay his bill at the hotel,
order a reservation on the express to Calais, and buy a large bunch of
fresh violets, which he had placed on the breakfast table--a little
table in a sunshiny corner.

Monte was calmer this morning than he had been the night before. He
was rested; the interval of eight hours that had passed since he last
saw her gave him, however slight, a certain perspective, while his
normal surroundings, seen in broad daylight, tended to steady him
further. The hotel clerk, busy about his uninspired duties; the
impassive waiters in black and white; the solid-looking Englishmen and
their wives who began to make their appearance, lent a sense of
unreality to the events of yesterday.

Yet, even so, his thoughts clung tenaciously to the necessity of his
departure. In a way, the very normality of this morning world
emphasized that necessity. He recalled that it was to just such a day
as this he had awakened, yesterday. The hotel clerk had been standing
exactly where he was now, sorting the morning mail, stopping every now
and then with a troubled frown to make out an indistinct address. The
corpulent porter in his blue blouse stood exactly where he was now
standing, jealously guarding the door. Vehicles had been passing this
way and that on the street outside. He had he