"They all three know that I love her--the Marquise, Corancez, and Miss Marsh. The look I caught from one of them last night, the remark and the smile of the other, and what the third one said, and her blush at having thought aloud--these are not dreams. They know I love her--But then, Corancez, last night, when he led me to the gambling-table, must have divined my thoughts. Such dissimulation!--is it possible? But why not? He acknowledged it himself awhile ago. To have concealed his sentiments for Madame Bonnacorsi, he must know how to keep a secret. He kept his and I have not kept mine. Who knows but they all three saw me buy the cigarette case? But no. They could not have had the cruelty to speak of it and to let it be spoken of before me. Marius is not malicious, neither is the Marquise, nor Miss Marsh. They know--that is all--they know. But how did they find out?" Yes, how? With a lover of his susceptibility such a question would of necessity result in one of those self-examinations in which the scruples of conscience develop all their feverish illusions. On the way back to California and at the table where his luncheon was served to him apart, and afterward on a solitary walk to the picturesque village of Mougins, his life during these last few weeks came back to him, day by day, hour by hour, with a displacement of perspective which presented all the simple incidents of his naïve idyl as irreparable faults, crowned by that last fault, the purchase of the gold box in a public place and in full view of such people. He recalled his first meeting with Madame de Carlsberg, in the Villa Chésy. How the peculiar beauty of the young woman and her strange charm had captivated him from the start, and how he had permitted himself to gaze upon her unrestrainedly, not dreaming that he was thus attracting attention and causing remarks! He remembered how often he had gone to her house, seizing every opportunity of meeting her and talking with her. The indiscretion of such assiduity could not have passed unperceived, any more than his continued presence at places where he had never gone before. He saw again the golf field on those mornings when the Baroness Ely seemed so beautiful, in her piquant dress of the bright club colors--red and white. He saw himself at the balls, waiting in a corner of the room until she entered with that enchantment which emanated from every fold of her gown. He remembered how often at the confectioner's, or La Croisette, he had approached her, and how she had always invited him to sit at her table with such grace in her welcome. Each of these memories recalled her amiability, her delicate indulgence.