aris!" she exclaimed.
"I know he's going. And I know he's going especially to see Maxine."
"It can't be. He told me to-night he wouldn't cross the street to see
her. I--I made it a condition--that if he found he cared enough for her
to want to see her again, he must go, of course: but he must give up all
thought of me. If I'm to reign, I must reign alone."
"Well, then, on thinking it over, he probably did find that he wanted to
see her."
"No. For he loved me just as much when we parted, only half an hour
ago."
"Yet at least two hours ago he'd arranged a meeting with Maxine for
to-morrow afternoon."
"You're dreaming."
"I was never wider awake: or if I'm dreaming, you can dream the same
dream if you'll be at Victoria Station to-morrow, or rather this
morning, when the boat train goes out at 10 o'clock."
"I will be there!" cried Di, changing from red to white. "And you shall
be with me, to see that you're wrong. I know you will be wrong."
"That's an engagement," said I. "At 10 o'clock, Victoria Station, just
you and I, and nobody else in the house the wiser. If I'm right, and
Ivor's there, shall you think it wise to give him up?"
"He might be obliged to go to Paris, suddenly, for some business reason,
without meaning to call on Maxine de Renzie--in which case he'd probably
write me. But--at the station, I shall ask him straight out--that is, if
he's there, as I'm sure he won't be--whether he intends to see
Mademoiselle de Renzie. If he says no, I'll believe him. If he says
yes--"
"You'll tell him all is over between you?"
"He'd know that without my telling, after our talk last night."
"And whatever happens, you will say nothing about having heard Maxine's
name from me?"
"Nothing," Di answered. And I knew she would keep her word.
IVOR DUNDAS' POINT OF VIEW
CHAPTER IV
IVOR TRAVELS TO PARIS
It is rather a startling sensation for a man to be caught suddenly by
the nape of the neck, so to speak, and pitched out of heaven down
to--the other place.
But that was what happened to me when I arrived at Victoria Station, on
my way to Paris.
I had taken my ticket and hurried on to the platform without too much
time to spare (I'd been warned not to risk observation by being too
early) when I came face to face with the girl whom, at any other time, I
should have liked best to meet: whom at that particular time I least
wished to meet: Diana Forrest.
"The Imp"--Lisa Drummond--
|