XXV.

When, dressed, that night he joined them in Ottercove’s private drawing-room, Frank was amazed by the new, modern aspect of Eva. How was it that he had never been so struck with her before? What ease! what grace! withal what beauty!

They dined at the Negresco in Nice and then hurried at a dangerous speed in a hired Rolls-Royce to Monte Carlo, and again in Ottercove’s box, alone with three men, Eva’s charm was conspicuous, as on the stage the melancholy chime of Kremlin bells determined the slow but steady ruin of a conscience-stricken man.

On the way back to Nice, they were pensive. _Boris Godounov_ had made a deep impression on the baron, who never missed a performance. “Fine man Moussorgski!” he muttered. “A great and wonderful genius! To have written that!” He paused. “If he were alive to-day, I would have made him a duke, or editor-in-chief of all my newspapers.”

“Or given him _The Evening Ensign_ as a wedding present,” added Frank.

Lord Ottercove closed one eye and glared at Frank with the other, and then closed it too and went to sleep in the depth of the car.

In the night, Frank could not sleep for jealousy. Why was she so intimate with de Jones and Ottercove? Why?

At three, he crept to her door and knocked gently.

She opened the door.

He went in.

“Darling!” he said.

“Darling!” she answered, and came into his arms.

“I am wretched,” he said, covering his face with his hands.

“Darling,” she watched him tenderly, “you are getting very thin. Your corner tooth is losing colour.” She looked at that thin individual with scanty hair and thought, without pressing the thought home to her: “Is that thing the thing on which I spent all my beautiful love?... Never mind, such as he is he is mine.”

“It is tragic,” Frank said, “to grow ugly without ever having been beautiful.”

She gave him a long kiss. And they were silent, and the silence seemed pregnant with memories. “Do you remember?” it seemed to say.

And for him there was fear and foreboding of loss in that kiss. He held her breathless and exulted in the thought that her naked heart beat against his.

She looked into his eyes. “Do with me what you like.”

How could he have ever parted with her? How could he ever part with her?