Good heavens! The woman, whoever she was, said it as it she meant it.

It was no joking voice, its owner was deeply moved. She was evidently French, though her English was nearly faultless, the accent a mere flavour. Esther recalled that a man and woman had taken the table on her right and a little behind her. She longed to look at them, but controlled her impulse, out of curiosity to hear more. There was a silence that seemed interminable. Then the woman spoke again, her voice vibrant, urgent:

"You heard me! Why don't you answer? Why? Ah! My G.o.d, it is like beating against a stone wall!"

At last a man's voice, low, cold and a little sulky.

"What do you want me to say, Therese? You know as well as I do I've got to live."

"Ah, but is that the reason--the only reason for your going?"

"Good G.o.d, what else would it be? You don't imagine I'd choose to bury myself in a rotten hole like that, do you?"

There was a long sigh, quavering with tears.

"I know how fearfully difficult it all is, only, Arthur, why must you decide at once? Why not wait a bit?"

"If I wait, I lose the job. That's why. I thought you understood.

Besides, what is there to hang about here for?"

"Well ... There's always a chance, isn't there?"

An exclamation of contempt followed by the scratch of a match, then again silence, fraught, so Esther felt, with tension. Who, what were these people? She must try to steal a glance at them. Cautiously she turned her head, then, finding both the occupants of the next table were looking the other way, she indulged in a good inspection.

The woman claimed her attention first. Young--a very young thirty-five, Esther decided--blonde with delicate transparency, and lovely; her natural beauty was accentuated by careful make-up and clothes so exquisite that they could be called "elegant" without a misuse of the word. It seemed evident that she was wealthy. Her gown of filmy black had the cachet of an exclusive house, the expensive simplicity that serves so well as a background for wonderful jewels.

Against it gleamed a heavy strand of glistening pearls--"Real ones, too!" thought Esther--on one slender arm slid negligently half a dozen diamond bangles, on the hand which supported her chin an enormous square diamond blazed. Her skin, shadowed by her little close black hat, was dazzling, her eyes large, grey flecked with gold, and shaded by long dark lashes. Altogether there was about her the clear beauty of a star, which even the traces of emotion now discernible could not dim.

And her companion--what was he like? Esther glanced at him and gave a start. It was the young Englishman who had come out of the doctor's house, the man she had seen before somewhere--she still did not recall where. Studied at close range he revealed points of interest. He was dressed with that perfection crowned with negligence which the Englishman of the upper cla.s.ses so admirably achieves. He was, in fact, unmistakably a gentleman, at least by birth, though his bored manner held a hint of insolence, a suggestion of the bounder. His hazel eyes, glancing about with irritable restlessness, were curiously devoid of any depths, his mouth showed a mixture of weakness and obstinacy, devil-may-care courage and lack of moral stamina. An after-the-war product, no doubt, nervy and jumpy, frayed by stimulants and late hours, and yet, with all this, attractive. Yes, curiously attractive, there was no denying it.

"Waiter--where's that blasted waiter gone?"

He turned in Esther's direction, and for an instant his eyes met hers and took her in, though with little show of interest. Seeing him full-face she suddenly recalled him. Of course! When she and Miss Ferriss had first arrived, they had seen him on two occasions lunching in the Carlton grill, in company with a swarthy over-dressed Spanish-looking woman and her daughter. She remembered now. Shrewd old Miss Ferriss had said about him:

"Esther, that young Englishman over there is very nice-looking, but I can tell you he's what we call at home a _cake-hound_. I can always spot them!"

Esther smiled at the recollection.

"Waiter--bring me a 'doctor'--will you? And hold on--what do you want, Therese?"

"_Rien--rien du tout. Non, tenez--du the de Chine, simplement._"

She took care of her looks, that was evident. The waiter gone, Esther saw the Frenchwoman lean across to her companion with an obvious effort of self-control.

"Arthur--tell me once more. What is it, this job you speak of?"

"What, the Argentine? I don't know. The Toda woman wants to take me out there as a sort of manager or something. She sails on the eighth; she expects me to go with her."

"T'ck! I knew it!"

The beautiful woman's voice rose shrilly with a strident note which was an odd revelation.

"So that is it! Manager--ha, ha, ha! But, of course, I might have known, it is quite plain, she wants you for herself--the old cow!

_Naturellement!_"

"S'sh, Therese, for G.o.d's sake----"

"Well, isn't it true? What can you do on a ranch? Why does she want you if not for herself? Do you deny it?"

"What's the use of denying anything? You'll believe what you want to believe."

He sounded cold, indifferent. The woman made an impulsive gesture.

"Ah, _mon cher_, now I have hurt you! Naturally I know you cannot care for this creature, this mountain of fat, _cette espece de vache espagnole_"--she uttered the epithet literally through her teeth--"but all the same I know that she wants you, and I also know that if you go so far away--thousands and thousands of miles--it will be the end. You know it too."

Out of the tail of her eye, Esther saw the young man merely shrug his shoulders. She grew more and more interested.

"Listen, Arthur. Can we not find you something here?"

"Good G.o.d, in Cannes?"

She answered the utter contempt of this with a burst of self-reproach.

"_Mon Dieu, mon Dieu, c'est de ma faute, si j'avais su----_"

"Oh, cut it, old girl, what's the good of post-mortems?"

"But it was my fault! If only I hadn't let him think it was baccarat--if I'd thought of some other excuse! But I never knew, I never dreamed--and now, of course, I'm so utterly helpless, my hands are tied!"

She made a hysterical gesture which shivered the diamond bangles in a ma.s.s together.

"Oh, well----"

"Arthur, tell me! Is there no other way, absolutely no other? Must you go with this creature?"

A pause while the returning waiter set before them tea and a c.o.c.ktail.

Then the young man's voice, wearied and irritable.

"I tell you I've got to live. And I can't live on air."

Another long pause and Esther began to fear they would say no more.

She had become so interested, too, it seemed a shame. After a wait of at least three minutes the woman spoke once more in an altered, quieter tone:

"I forgot to tell you something. Yesterday I went again to Fleuristine. You remember Fleurestine?"

"Oh, _that_ woman!"

"Oh, I know you don't believe in her, but ... well, anyhow, yesterday she went into a trance. She was quite, quite unconscious. She saw things. She saw Charles..."

"Oh, she did, did she?"