a continuing claim upon her interest. Henceforth she might
be wary of him, but she would never lose touch with him if she could
help it.

Now Athenais was pausing beside the table, and saying with a smile as
weary as it was charming:

"Come, Monsieur Paul, if you please, and take me home! I've danced till
I'm ready to drop."

Annoyed by the prospect of being obliged to let Lanyard out of her
sight so soon, before she had time to mature her plans with respect to
him, Liane Delorme pulled herself together.

"Go home?" she protested with a vivacity so forced it drew a curious
stare even from the empty Le Brun. "So early! My dear! what are you
thinking of?" "I've been on the go all day long," Athenais explained
sweetly; "and now I've got nothing left to keep up on."

"Zut!" the Delorme insisted. "Have more champagne and--"

"Thank you, no, dearest. My head is swimming with it already. I really
must go. Surely you don't mind?"

But Liane did mind, and the wine she had drunk had left her only a
remnant of sobriety, not enough for good control of her temper.

"Mind?" she echoed rudely. "Why should I mind whether you stay or go?
It's your affair, not mine." She made a scornful mouth; and the look
with which she coupled Lanyard and Athenais in innuendo was in itself
almost actionable. "But me," she pursued with shrill vivacity--"I
shan't go yet, I'm not drunk enough by half. Get more champagne,
Fred"--this to Le Brun as she turned a gleaming shoulder to the
others--"quantities of it--and tell Chu-chu to bring Angele over, and
Constance and Victor, too. Thanks to the good God, they at least know
they are still alive!"

XV

ADIEU

Ever since the fall of evening, whose clear gloaming had seemed to
promise a fair night of moonlight, the skies had been thickening slowly
over Paris. While still at the Ambassadeurs Lanyard had noticed that
the moon was being blotted out. By midnight its paling disk had become
totally eclipsed, the clouds hung low over the city, a dense blanket
imprisoning heat which was oppressive even in the open and stifling in
the ill-ventilated restaurants.

Now from the shelter of the cafe canopy Lanyard and Athenais Reneaux
looked out upon a pave like a river of jet ribboned with gently glowing
lights and running between the low banks of sidewalks no less black:
both deserted but for a few belated prowlers lurching homeward through
the drizzle, and a rank of private cars waiting near the e