'Bah!' said Gaston, coolly, having recovered from the first shock of surprise. 'That style suits Sarah Bernhardt, not you, my dear. The first act of this comedy is excellent, but it is necessary the characters should know one another in order to finish the play.'

'Ah!' said Kitty, with a bitter smile, 'do I not know you too well, as the man who promised me marriage and then broke his word? You forgot all your vows to me.'

'My dear child,' replied Gaston leisurely, leaning up against the mantelpiece, 'if you had read Balzac you would discover that he says, "Life would be intolerable without a certain amount of forgetting." I must say,' smiling, 'I agree with the novelist.'

Kitty looked at him as he stood there cool and complacent, and threw herself back into the chair angrily.

'Just the same,' she muttered restlessly, 'just the same.'

'Of course,' replied Vandeloup, raising his eyebrows in surprise. 'You have only been away from me six weeks, and it takes longer than that to alter any one. By the way,' he went on smoothly, 'how have you been all this time? I have no doubt your tour has been as adventurous as that of Gil Bias.'

'No, it has not,' replied Kitty, clenching her hands. 'You never cared what became of me, and had not Mr Wopples met me in the street on that fearful night, G.o.d knows where I would have been now.'

'I can tell you,' said Gaston, coolly, taking a seat. 'With me. You would have soon got tired of the poverty of the streets, and come back to your cage.'

'My cage, indeed!' she echoed, bitterly, tapping the ground with her foot. 'Yes, a cage, though it was a gilded one.'

'How Biblical you are getting,' said the young man, ironically; 'but kindly stop speaking in parables, and tell me what position we are to occupy to each other. As formerly?'

'My G.o.d, no!' she flashed out suddenly.

'So much the better,' he answered, bowing. 'We will obliterate the last year from our memories, and I will meet you to-night for the first time since you left Ballarat. Of course,' he went on, rather anxiously, 'you have told Madame nothing?'

'Only what suited me,' replied the girl, coldly, stung by the coldness and utter heartlessness of this man.

'Oh!' with a smile. 'Did it include my name?'

'No,' curtly.

'Ah!' with a long indrawn breath, 'you are more sensible than I gave you credit for.'

Kitty rose to her feet and crossed rapidly over to where he sat calm and smiling.

'Gaston Vandeloup!' she hissed in his ear, while her face was quite distorted by the violence of her pa.s.sion, 'when I met you I was an innocent girl--you ruined me, and then cast me off as soon as you grew weary of your toy. I thought you loved me, and,' with a stifled sob, 'G.o.d help me, I love you still.'

'Yes, my Bebe,' he said, in a caressing tone, taking her hand.

'No! no,' she cried, wrenching them away, while an angry spot of colour glowed on her cheek, 'I loved you as you were--not as you are now--we are done with sentiment, M. Vandeloup,' she said, sneering, 'and now our relations to one another will be purely business ones.'

He bowed and smiled.

'So glad you understand the position,' he said, blandly; 'I see the age of miracles is not yet past when a woman can talk sense.'

'You won't disturb me with your sneers,' retorted the girl, glaring fiercely at him out of the gathering gloom in the room; 'I am not the innocent girl I once was.'

'It is needless to tell me that,' he said, coa.r.s.ely.

She drew herself up at the extreme insult.

'Have a care, Gaston,' she muttered, hurriedly, 'I know more about your past life than you think.'

He rose from his seat and approached his face, now white as her own, to hers.

'What do you know?' he asked, in a low, pa.s.sionate voice.

'Enough to be dangerous to you,' she retorted, defiantly.

They both looked at one another steadily, but the white face of the woman did not blench before the scintillations of his eyes.

'What you know I don't know,' he said, steadily; 'but whatever it is, keep it to yourself, or--,' catching her wrist.

'Or what?' she asked, boldly.

He threw her away from him with a laugh, and the sombre fire died out of his eyes.

'Bah!' he said, gaily, 'our comedy is turning into a tragedy; I am as foolish as you; I think,' significantly, 'we understand one another.'

'Yes, I think we do,' she answered, calmly, the colour coming back to her cheek. 'Neither of us are to refer to the past, and we both go on our different roads unhindered.'

'Mademoiselle Marchurst,' said Vandeloup, ceremoniously, 'I am delighted to meet you after a year's absence--come,' with a gay laugh, 'let us begin the comedy thus, for here,' he added quickly, as the door opened, 'here comes the spectators.'

'Well, young people,' said Madame's voice, as she came slowly into the room, 'you are all in the dark; ring the bell for lights, M. Vandeloup.'

'Certainly, Madame,' he answered, touching the electric b.u.t.ton, 'Miss Marchurst and myself were renewing our former friendship.'

'How do you think she is looking?' asked Madame, as the servant came in and lit the gas.

'Charming,' replied Vandeloup, looking at the dainty little figure in white standing under the blaze of the chandelier; 'she is more beautiful than ever.'

Kitty made a saucy little curtsey, and burst into a musical laugh.

'He is just the same, Madame,' she said merrily to the tall, grave woman in black velvet, who stood looking at her affectionately, 'full of compliments, and not meaning one; but when is dinner to be ready?'

pathetically, 'I'm dying of starvation.'

'I hope you have peaches, Madame,' said Vandeloup, gaily; 'the first time I met Mademoiselle she was longing for peaches.'

'I am unchanged in that respect,' retorted Kitty, brightly; 'I adore peaches still.'

'I am just waiting for Mr Calton,' said Madame Midas, looking at her watch; 'he ought to be here by now.'

'Is that the lawyer, Madame?' asked Vandeloup.

'Yes,' she replied, quietly, 'he is a most delightful man.'

'So I have heard,' answered Vandeloup, nonchalantly, 'and he had something to do with a former owner of this house, I think.'

'Oh, don't talk of that,' said Mrs Villiers, nervously; 'the first time I took the house, I heard all about the Hansom Cab murder.'