“It is to Lady Lilian that you owe them now.” And he handed her the notes, which she flung on to the divan. She was panting. She went out on the terrace to breathe. It was that ambiguous hour when night is drawing to an end, and the devil casts up his accounts. Outside not a sound was to be heard. Vincent had seated himself on the divan. Lilian turned towards him:

“And now, what do you mean to do?” she asked; and for the first time she called him “thou.”

He put his head between his hands and said with a kind of sob:

“I don’t know.”

Lilian went up to him and put her hand on his forehead; he raised it and his eyes were dry and burning.

“In the meantime, we’ll drink each other’s health,” said she, and she filled the three glasses with Tokay. After they had drunk:

“Now you must go. It’s late and I’m tired out.” She accompanied them into the antechamber and then, as Robert went out first, she slipped a little metal object into Vincent’s hand. “Go out with him,” she whispered, “and come back in a quarter of an hour.”

In the antechamber a footman was dozing. She shook him by the arm.

“Light these gentlemen downstairs,” she said.

The staircase was dark. It would have been a simple matter, no doubt, to make use of electric light, but she made it a point that her visitors should always be shown out by a servant.

The footman lighted the candles in a big candelabra, which he held high above him and preceded Robert and Vincent downstairs. Robert’s car was waiting outside the door, which the footman shut behind them.

“I think I shall walk home. I need a little exercise to steady my nerves,” said Vincent, as the other opened the door of the motor and signed to him to get in.

“Don’t you really want me to take you home?” And Robert suddenly seized Vincent’s left hand, which he was holding shut. “Open your hand! Come! Show us what you’ve got there!”

Vincent was simpleton enough to be afraid of Robert’s jealousy. He blushed as he loosened his fingers and a little key fell on to the pavement. Robert picked it up at once, looked at it and gave it back to Vincent with a laugh.

“Ho! Ho!” he said and shrugged his shoulders. Then as he was getting into his car, he turned back to Vincent, who was standing there looking a little foolish:

“It’s Thursday morning. Tell your brother that I expect him this afternoon at four o’clock.” And he shut the door of the carriage quickly without giving Vincent time to answer.

The car went off. Vincent walked a few paces along the quay, crossed the Seine, and went on till he reached the part of the Tuileries which lies outside the railings; going up to the little fountain, he soaked his handkerchief in the water and pressed it on to his forehead and his temples. Then, slowly, he walked back towards Lilian’s house. There let us leave him, while the devil watches him with amusement as he noiselessly slips the little key into the keyhole.…

It is at this same hour that Laura, his yesterday’s mistress, is at last dropping off to sleep in her gloomy little hotel room, after having long wept, long bemoaned herself. On the deck of the ship which is bringing him back to France, Edouard, in the first light of the dawn, is re-reading her letter—the plaintive letter in which she appeals for help. The gentle shores of his native land are already in sight, though scarcely visible through the morning mist to any but a practised eye. Not a cloud is in the heavens, where the glance of God will soon be smiling. The horizon is already lifting a rosy eyelid. How hot it is going to be in Paris! It is time to return to Bernard. Here he is, just awaking in Olivier’s bed.

VI : Bernard Awakens

We are all bastards;

And that most venerable man which I

Did call my father, was I know not where

When I was stamped.

SHAKESPEARE: Cymbeline.

Bernard has had an absurd dream. He doesn’t remember his dream. He doesn’t try to remember his dream, but to get out of it.