eaded for toleration. Her eyes, though bright, were
sunken, like those of a woman who has not slept.

"Monsieur," said Vauvenarde, "my wife informs me that to your
disinterested friendship is due this most charming reconciliation."

"Reconciliation?" I echoed. "It was quickly effected."

"_Mon Dieu_," he said. "I have always longed for the comforts of a home.
My wife has grown tired of a migratory existence. She comes to find
me. I hasten to meet her. There is nothing to keep us apart. The
reconciliation was a matter of a few seconds. I wish to express my
gratitude to you, and, therefore, I ask you to accept my most cordial
thanks."

"It has always been a pleasure to me," said I very frigidly, "to place
my services at the disposal of Madame Brandt."

"Vauvenarde, Monsieur," he corrected with a smile.

"And is Madame Vauvenarde equally satisfied with the--reconciliation?" I
asked.

"I think Monsieur Vauvenarde is somewhat premature," said Lola, with a
trembling lip. "There were conditions--"

"A mere question of protocol." He waved an airy hand.

"I don't know what that is," said Lola. "There are conditions I must
fix, and I thought the advice of my friend, Monsieur de Gex--"

"Precisely, my dear Lola," he interrupted. "The principle is affirmed.
We are reconciled. I proceed logically. The first thing I do is to thank
Monsieur de Gex--you have a French name, Monsieur, and you pronounce it
English fashion, which is somewhat embarrassing--But no matter. The
next thing is the protocol. We have no possibility of calling a family
council, and therefore, I acceded with pleasure to the intervention
of Monsieur. It is kind of him to burden himself with our unimportant
affairs."

The irony of his tone belied the suave correctitude of his words. I
detested him more and more. More and more did I realise that the dying
eumoirist is capable of petty human passions. My vanity was being
sacrified. Here was a woman passionately in love with me proposing
to throw herself into another man's arms--it made not a scrap of
difference, in the circumstances, that the man was her husband--and into
the arms of such a man! Having known me to decline--etcetera, etcetera!
How could she face it? And why was she doing it? To save herself from
me, or me from herself? She knew perfectly well that the little pain
inside would precious soon settle that question. Why was she doing it?
I should have thought that the first glance at the puffy re