another inch torn in the rags of disillusionment which had got to be
destroyed thoroughly before she could ever hope to gather up the
broken threads of her life again.

He laughed at her reminder.

"I'm not the only married man who sometimes forgets that he is no
longer a bachelor," he said detestably.

He laid an arm familiarly along the back of her chair. He touched her
chin with his fingers.

She moved back, the hot blood rushing riotously over her face. She was
white no longer; she looked like a marble Galatea suddenly brought to
life.

Raymond Ashton laughed, well pleased. He was confident that he had not
lost his power over her. For the moment his appalling vanity blinded
him to the fact that it was not love in her eyes, but scorn.

"What are you thinking, Lallie?" he asked her.

She sat very straight and stiff in her chair.

"I am thinking," she said, "how impossible it seems that I can ever
have thought that I cared for you." Her voice was low but very clear,
and he heard each word distinctly. "I am thinking that you are the
most contemptible thing I have ever met in my life--I am thinking how
sorry I am for the woman who is your wife."

She pushed back her chair and rose.

"Would you like to hear any more of my thoughts?" she asked.

Ashton had risen too; there was a look of bewildered amazement in his
face; he tried to laugh. Even now he thought she was joking.

"Lallie--" he said hoarsely. He half held his hand to her. "Lallie--"
he said again--but the cold contempt of her face struck the appeal
from her lips.

He drew himself up with a poor attempt at dignity.

"So virtue is to be the order of the day, is it?" he said sneeringly.
"Very well----" His eyes flamed as they rested on her face. "It
makes one wonder why you are here--in Paris--alone!" he said
insultingly--"If you are alone."

There was a little point of silence. For a moment Esther scanned his
handsome face as if she were trying to remember what it was she had
ever loved in him--his eyes!--but they were so cruel and insolent--his
lips ... she shuddered, realising that in all her life she could
never undo the memory of his kisses--then she pulled herself together
with a great effort and turned away.

He followed. His amazement had gone now--he was merely furiously
angry--his face was crimson--he caught her arm in a grip that hurt.

"My God, you're not going like this," he said furiously. "It's only a
few weeks ago that you we