erly blurred that he miscalculated the distance between the two
lowest treads, slipped and stumbled, lunging forward. Quick as a cat,
Madame de Vallorbes was behind him, her right hand grasping his right
elbow, her left hand under his left armpit.

"Ah! Dickie, Dickie, don't fall!" she cried, a sudden terror in her
voice.

Her muscles hardened like steel. It needed all her strength to support
him, for he was heavy, his body inert as that of one fainting. For a
moment his head rested against her bosom; and her breath came short,
sighing against his neck and cheek.

By sheer force of will Richard recovered his footing, disengaging
himself from her support, shuffling aside from her.

"A thousand thanks, Helen," he said.

Then he looked full at her, and she--untender though she was--perceived
that the perspective of space on which, as windows might, his eyes
seemed to open back, was not empty. It was peopled, crowded--even as
those steep, teeming byways of Naples--by undying, unforgetable misery,
humiliation, revolt.

"Yes, it is rather unpardonable to be--as I am--isn't it?" he said.
Adding hastily, yet with a certain courteous dignity:--"I am ashamed to
trouble you, to ask you--of all people--to run messages for me--but
would you go on to the house----"

"Dickie, why may not I help you?" she interrupted.

"Ah!" he said, "the answer to that lies away back in the beginning of
things. Even unlucky devils, such as myself, are not without a certain
respect for that which is fitting, for seemliness and etiquette. Send
one of my men please. I shall be very grateful to you--thanks."

And Helen de Vallorbes, her passion baulked and therefore more than
ever at white heat, swept up the paved alley, amid the sweet scents of
the garden, beneath the jeweled rain of the fountain, that point of
north in the wind dallying with her as in laughing challenge, making
her the more mad to have her way with Richard Calmady, yet knowing that
of the two--he and she--he was the stronger as yet.

CHAPTER VIII

IN WHICH HELEN DE VALLORBES LEARNS HER RIVAL'S NAME

"I hear Morabita sings, in _Ernani_, at the San Carlo on Friday night.
Do you care to go, Helen?"

The question, though asked casually, had, to the listener, the effect
of falling with a splash, as of a stone into a well, awakening
unexpected echoes, disturbing, rather harshly, the constrained silence
which had reigned during the earlier part of dinner.

All the lon