anyard
mounted the second flight of stairs as swiftly, surely, and soundlessly
as he had the first. But just below a landing, where the staircase had
an angle, he paused, crouching low, flat to the steps, his head lifted
just enough to permit him to see, above the edge of the topmost, a
section of glowing, rose-pink wall--it would be rose-pink!

He could see nothing more; and Liane had already silenced the maid, or
rather reduced her to responses feebly submissive, and, consonant with
the nature of her kind, was rubbing it in.

"And why should you not go with me to that America if I wish it?"
Lanyard heard her say. "Is it likely I would leave you behind to spread
scandal concerning me with that gabbling tongue in your head of an
overgrown cabbage? It is some lover, then, who has inspired this folly
in you? Tell him from me, if you please, the day you leave my service
without my consent, it will be a sorry sweetheart that comes to him."

"It is well, madame. I say no more. I will go."

"I believe it well--you will go! You were mad ever to dream otherwise.
Fetch my jewel-case--the large one, of steel, with the American lock."

"Madame takes all her jewels, then?" the maid enquired, moving about
the room.

"But naturally. What do you think? That I leave them here for the
scullery-maids to give their maquereaux? I shall pack them tonight,
before I sleep."

("Damnation!"--from Lanyard, beneath his breath. More delay!)

"And we leave to-morrow, madame, at what time?"

"It matters not, so we are in Cherbourg by midnight. I may decide to
make the trip by automobile."

"And madame's packing?"

"You know well what to pack, better than I. Get my boxes up the first
thing in the morning and use your own judgment. If there are questions
to be asked, save them until I wake up. I shall sleep till noon."

"That is all, madame?"

"That is all. You may go."

"Good-night, madame."

"Good-night, Marthe."

The stairway was no place to stop. Lanyard slipped like a shadow to the
floor below, and took shelter behind a jog in the wall of the grand
salon where, standing in deep darkness, he commanded a view of the
hall.

The maid came down, carrying an electric candle like the footman's. Its
rays illumined from below one of those faces of crude comeliness common
to her class, the face of an animal not unintelligent but first and
last an animal. With a hand on the lower newel-post she hesitated,
looking up toward the room of