A knock at the door opening into the sitting-room came to Hermione's relief.

"Yes?" she said.

"If you can spare Marcelle, I would recommend that she should go to your flat for any clothes you may need," said Curtis's voice.

Hermione threw open the door.

"A little while ago you told me that it was impossible to think of returning there," she said.

"For you, yes, but not for your maid. Who is to hinder? That man, Rafferty, looked a decent sort of fellow."

"I can manage Rafferty all right," put in Marcelle.

"Of course you can," smiled Curtis. "Just pack a trunk or a couple of bags with Lady Hermione's belongings--you know what to bring--and get Rafferty to call a taxi without attracting too much notice. If you think you are being followed, put your pursuers off the scent. But my own view is that 1000 59th Street is the last place anyone will think of watching to-night."

"Shall I go at once, your ladyship?" said Marcelle, and Hermione said "Yes," with a meekness that was admirable in a wife.

Curtis looked at his pretty bride's hat.

"I have ordered a meal," he said. "It will be served in a few minutes."

"I shall be ready," she replied, beginning nervously to take off her gloves. The wedding ring was inclined to accompany the left hand glove, but, after a second's hesitation, she replaced it. When she appeared in the sitting-room she had discarded her jacket, a close-fitting one of a style that fastened _a la militaire_, high in the neck. Beneath it she had been wearing a white silk blouse, and the delicate pink of her arms and throat was revealed now through its diaphanous sheen. A string of pearls supported a diamond cross on her breast, and on her left wrist was a watch set in small diamonds and turquoises and carried by a bracelet of gold filigree. She wore only one ring--_the_ ring--and even the slight glance which Curtis gave it brought a vivid blush to her cheeks.

"I am not a past master in the art of ordering banquets," he said cheerily, turning at once to draw her attention to the table, "but the head-waiter here is a gourmet. He suggested caviare, a white soup, a king-fish, a tourne-dos, and a grouse--does that appeal?"

"You take my breath away," she said, with valorous effort to seem at ease.

"Now--as to wine?"

"I seldom touch wine."

"To-night it will make you sleep. What do you say to a gla.s.s of Clos Vosgeot?"

"Is that a claret?"

"Yes."

"Well, as it happens, that is the one wine I take."

The dinner proceeded most pleasantly. To his own astonishment, Curtis worked up sufficient appet.i.te to enjoy the meal, though he would have stuffed himself remorselessly to save his charming _vis-a-vis_ from the slightest embarra.s.sment. But he only sipped the wine, for a sixth sense warned him that he must keep a clear head that night.

By inference rather than plain statement, for a deft waiter was constantly coming in and out, he supplied Hermione with glimpses of his own career, and ascertained from her that she had secured Marcelle's services through the good offices of a lady who was a fellow-pa.s.senger on the ship.

"She comes from New Orleans, but, notwithstanding her name, she does not speak French," said Hermione. "I think that rather accounts for----"

She stopped, and Curtis did not press for an explanation, but she continued, after a second's pause:

"Marcelle did not like Monsieur de Courtois. I imagined she was annoyed because he always conversed with me in a language she did not understand."

"Then I shall avoid Chinese," he laughed.

"Marcelle----"

Again she hesitated. She was positively dismayed by consciousness of the imminent disclosure, yet too well-bred even to appear to be withholding confidences.

"You have won Marcelle's golden opinion already," she said. "But let us talk of something else."

For the moment they were alone, and she glanced at the watch on her wrist.

"Have you made any plans?" she inquired, and her voice was low, yet sufficiently composed.

"For the future?"

"Yes."

"When Marcelle arrives, I am going to my hotel for some baggage. You, I suggest, are going to bed."

"You will return?"

"Within the hour--if I am alive."

"And to-morrow?"

"To-morrow, may it please your ladyship, we breakfast together at nine o'clock."

"Your plan, then, is mainly composed of eating and sleeping?"

"What else--our policy is one of drifting."

"You are extraordinarily good to me, Mr. Curtis."

"It is 'Jack' in the compact."

She sighed.

"Alas, this compact reads only one way. It means that you give and I receive. Will you--will you believe, in the future, that despair alone could have driven me to the course I have pursued?"

"No," he said st.u.r.dily.

"No? That is the only unkind thing you have said."

"I refuse to vilify happy chance in the name of black despair.

But--here is Marcelle, and slaves bearing packages. I hear thuds in the next room."

And, indeed, the waiter entering just then with coffee, Marcelle's voice reached them sharply from the corridor:

"Now, you boy, be careful with that hat-box! Do you think you are an express man, or what?"