ar, Queen would one day possess millions. Her
family and her innumerable powerful relatives would be compelled to
accept him without the slightest reserve, for Queen issued edicts;
and through all those big people he would acquire immense prestige
and influence, which he could use greatly. Ambition flared up in
him--ambition to impress himself on his era. And he reflected with
satisfaction on the strangeness of the fact that such an opportunity
should have come to him, the son of a lawyer, solely by virtue of his
own individuality. He thought of Christine, and poor little Christine
was shrunk to nothing at all; she was scarcely even an object of
compassion; she was a prostitute.

But far more than by Queen's connections and prospective wealth he was
tempted by her youth and beauty; he saw her beautiful and girlish, and
he was sexually tempted. Most of all he was tempted by the desire to
master her. He saw again the foolish, elegant, brilliant thing on the
chimney pretending to defy him and mock at him. And he heard himself
commanding sharply: "Come down. Come down and acknowledge your ruler.
Come down and be whipped." (For had he not been told that she would
like nothing better?) And he heard the West End of London and all the
country-houses saying, "She obeys _him_ like a slave." He conceived a
new and dazzling environment for himself; and it was undeniable that
he needed something of the kind, for he was growing lonely; before
the war he had lived intensely in his younger friends, but the war had
taken nearly all of them away from him, many of them for ever.

Then he said in a voice almost resentfully satiric, and wondered why
such a tone should come from his lips:

"Another of her caprices, no doubt."

"What do you mean--another of her caprices?" said Concepcion,
straightening herself and leaning against the mantelpiece.

He had noticed, only a moment earlier, on the mantelpiece, a large
photograph of the handsome Molder, with some writing under it.

"Well, what about that, for example?"

He pointed. Concepcion glanced at him for the first time, and her eyes
followed the direction of his finger.

"That! I don't know anything about it."

"Do you mean to say that while you were gossiping till five o'clock
this morning, you two, she didn't mention it?"

"She didn't."

G.J. went right on, murmuring:

"Wants to do something unusual. Wants to astonish the town."

"No! No!"

"Then you seriously tell me she