ehearsal, and that the car would therefore leave
the house in the Boulevard Pereire at about the same time, every two or
three days, but never on two days consecutively. When there was no
rehearsal, Margaret would not come into town. When that was the case it
would be easy to watch the house in Versailles. Lushington was not
quite sure what he expected to see, but he would watch it all the same.
Perhaps, on those days, Logotheti would appear undisguised and call.
But what Lushington was most anxious to find out was whether Margaret
had been to the house again. He wished he had waited near the Opera to
see where she went when she came out, or in the Boulevard Pereire,
instead of coming back to his lodgings in a bad temper after his
interview with the stage doorkeeper.

He looked out of the window and saw that it was raining. That made it
sure that Margaret would not go back to Versailles in the motor car,
but in the meantime she might very possibly be at Logotheti's, at
luncheon.

He glanced at his watch, and a few minutes later he was on his bicycle
again, an outlandish figure in his long-tailed, coffee-coloured
overcoat and soft student's hat. He hitched up the tails as well as he
could and sat on them, to keep them out of the mud, and he pulled the
hat well down to keep the rain off his big spectacles and his nose. His
own mother would certainly not have recognised him.

He spent a melancholy hour, riding up and down in the wet between the
Place Pereire and the Place Wagram, till he wished with all his heart
that he might never again set eyes on the statue of Alphonse de
Neuville. Half the time, too, he was obliged to look back every moment
in order to watch Logotheti's door, lest he should miss what he was
waiting so patiently to see. The rain was cold, too, and persistent as
it can be in Paris, even in spring. His gloves were pulpy and
jellified, his spring-side kid boots felt as if he were taking a foot
bath of cold glue, and some insidious drops of cold water were
trickling down his back. The broad street was almost deserted, and when
he met any one he wished it were altogether so. Yet he wondered why a
man as rich as Logotheti should have built his house there.

At last his patience was rewarded. A brougham drove up past him at a
smart pace, stopped before the door and waited. He turned back and
wheeled round, crossing and re-crossing the street, so as to keep
behind the carriage. As it was impossible to cont