He plays anyhow.”

“He’s had time to learn.… Will you make a bet that to-night he’ll win?”

“If you like.”

“Oh, please don’t take it as a penance. I like people to do what they do willingly.”

“Don’t be cross. Agreed then. If he wins, he’ll pay the money back to you. But if he loses, it’s you who’ll pay me. Is that all right?”

She pressed a bell.

“Bring a bottle of Tokay and three glasses, please.… And if he comes back with the five thousand and no more—he shall keep it, eh? If he neither loses nor wins.… ”

“That’s unheard of. It’s odd what an interest you take in him.”

“It’s odd that you don’t think him interesting.”

“You think him interesting because you’re in love with him.”

“Yes, my dear boy, that’s true. One doesn’t mind admitting that to you. But that’s not the reason he interests me. On the contrary—as a rule, when my head’s attracted, the rest of me turns cold.”

A servant came in with wine and glasses on a tray.

“First of all let’s seal our bet, and afterwards we’ll have another glass in honour of the winner.”

The servant poured out the wine and they drank to each other.

“Personally, I think your Vincent a bore.”

“Oh, ‘my Vincent’!… As if it hadn’t been you who brought him here! And then, I advise you not to go repeating everywhere that you think him a bore. Your reason for frequenting him would be too obvious.”

Robert turned a little to put his lips on Lilian’s bare foot; she drew it away quickly and covered it with her fan.

“Must I blush?” said he.

“It’s not worthwhile trying as far as I am concerned. You couldn’t succeed.”

She emptied her glass, and then:

“D’you know what, my dear friend? You have all the qualities of a man of letters—you are vain, hypocritical, fickle, selfish.… ”

“You are too flattering!”

“Yes; that’s all very charming—but you’ll never be a good novelist.”

“Because?”

“Because you don’t know how to listen.”

“It seems to me I’m listening admirably.”

“Pooh! He isn’t a writer and he listens a great deal better. But when we are together, I am the one to listen.”

“He hardly knows how to speak.”

“That’s because you never stop talking yourself.”

“I know everything he’s going to say beforehand.”

“You think so? Do you know the story of his affair with that woman?”

“Oh! Love affairs! The dullest things in the world!”

“And then I like it when he talks about natural history.”

“Natural history is even duller than love affairs. Does he give you lectures then?”

“If I could only repeat what he says.… It’s thrilling, my dear friend. He tells me all sorts of things about the deep seas. I’ve always been particularly curious about creatures that live in the sea. You know that in America they make boats with glass let into the sides, so that you can go to the bottom of the sea and look all round you. They say that the sights are simply marvellous—live coral and … and … what do you call them?… madrepores, and sponges, and sea-weeds, and great shoals of fish. Vincent says that there are certain kinds of fish which die according as the water becomes more salt or less, and that there are others, on the contrary, which can live in any degree of salt water; and that they swim about on the edge of the currents, where the water becomes less salt, so as to prey on the others when their strength fails them. You ought to get him to talk to you about it.… I assure you it’s most curious. When he talks about things like that, he becomes extraordinary. You wouldn’t recognize him.… But you don’t know how to get him to talk.… It’s like when he tells me about his affair with Laura Douviers—yes, that’s her name.… Do you know how he got to know her?”

“Did he tell you?”

“People tell me everything. You know they do, you shocking creature!” And she stroked his face with the feathers of her closed fan.

“Did you suspect that he had been to see me every single day since the evening you first brought him?”

“Every day? No, really! I didn’t suspect that.”

“On the fourth, he couldn’t resist any longer; he came out with the whole thing. But on every day following, he kept adding details.”

“And it didn’t bore you? You’re a wonder!”

“I told you, my dear, that I love him.” And she seized his arm emphatically.

“And he … loves the other woman?”

Lilian laughed.

“He did love her. Oh, I had to pretend at first to be deeply interested in her. I even had to weep with him. And all the time I was horribly jealous. I’m not any more now. Just listen how it began. They were at Pau together in the same home—a sanatorium, where they had been sent because they were supposed to be tuberculous.