a staggering dexterity and impudence possessed
herself of his glass. Over the rim of it she kept her eyes on him,
narrowed eyes, darting mockery of Binky under half-closed lids; and,
with her head tilted back, she drank; she drank daintily, about an
inch down, and then she gave the glass to the large man, and he, as
if honor and chivalry compelled him also, emptied it.

"Did you that time, Binky," she murmured.

Thesiger heard her. She was looking at him, obviously to see how his
fastidiousness had taken it. She leaned forward, her elbows on the
table, and her head, propped on her hands, tilted slightly backward,
and she gazed at him under her lowered eyelids with her narrowed,
darting eyes. Then suddenly she lowered her chin and opened her
eyes, and he met them full.

Her gaze, which had first fascinated, now excited him; very
curiously it excited him, seeing that he was thinking about Vera
Walters all the time. So unabashed it was, and so alluring, it sent
such challenge and encouragement to the adventurous blood, that
under it the passion that Vera would have none of detached itself
from Vera with a fierce revulsion, and was drawn and driven, driven
and drawn toward that luminous and invincible gaze. And Thesiger
began to say to himself that the world was all before him, although
for him Vera had walked out of it; that he was a man of the world;
and that he didn't care.

It seemed to him that the beautiful American smiled again at him.
Then she got up, and swept down the dining-hall, swinging her rosy
draperies. The two men followed her, and Thesiger was left alone in
that vast place, seated at his table, and staring into a half-empty
wineglass, to the embarrassment of the waiter who hovered by his
chair.

After all, she left him an ultimate scruple; he could not altogether
trust his doubt.

III

It was a fine night, and the lounge was almost deserted. Thesiger,
searching it for some one he could speak to, counted four old ladies
and their middle-aged companions, three young governesses and their
charges only less young, and one old gentleman, fixed by an extreme
corpulence in his armchair, asleep over _Le Figaro_, while one
ponderous hand retained upon his knee _Le Petit Journal_. Nowhere
any sign of the transatlantic mystery and her companions. It
occurred to Thesiger that it might interest him to know her name (he
hadn't heard it), and even the number of her room.

He strolled to the racks on each si