he glanced at her watch again--and then, quickly, out of the window.
It was ten minutes past five, and the car was slowing up in front of
the studio. In twenty minutes the others would be here--she had told
_them_ to be prompt. Some day, it was very possible, she might marry
Jean--but not yet. She was far too well contented with her life as it
was! She had managed Jean and his tentative outbursts--for his
docility, as she dubbed it, had not been mere tameness--with perfect
success for two years; and now, if, as she was somewhat inclined to
surmise, his actions of last evening presaged another, she was quite
capable of managing that--for twenty minutes.

She alighted from the car, and, instructing her chauffeur that he need
not wait, ran up the steps of the sort of stoop that was over the
concierge's door and apartment beneath. Hector's red head and
doll's-blue eyes, for once, a little to her surprise, were not in
evidence on the arrival of a car. The front door, however, was not
locked. She pushed it open, entered the hallway, crossed to the door
of the salon, and knocked. There was no answer. There was, however,
nothing strange about that--Jean, probably, was in the studio proper,
the _atelier_ beyond. Well, she would surprise him!

She opened the salon door softly, closed it softly, stepped into the
centre of the large, magnificently appointed room, whose decorations
and remodelling she and her father had planned; and, calmly unbuttoning
her long glove, stood looking around her. And then her fingers held
quite rigidly on a glove button. She had not seen him as she had
entered! Jean was rising from a divan behind her, near the door. Her
arm, still extended, the other hand still on the glove button, she
turned her head and shoulders like a statue on a pivot, to watch him in
amazement. Without a word, he had stepped swiftly to the door, locked
it--and now he was putting the key in his pocket.

"Jean, what are you doing?" she exclaimed sharply.

He laughed a little--in a low way. It was the first sound he had made.
She stared at him, a thrill upon her that she could not quite
define--it was not fear; it was more an uncomfortable disquiet, in
which surprise and bewilderment were dominant. But now, as he faced
her, she noticed that the same high colour was in his cheeks, the same
nervous brilliancy was in his eyes as had been there the night
before--and he was not even dressed, he who was so punctilious