She glanced almost nervously around her. He went on without pause. 'So far as that simple fact is concerned,' he continued, 'you will not--you need have no fear of my discretion.' She gave him her hands again and this time there was more of invitation in her gesture. 'You were always kind to me,' she murmured. 'We shall see something of one another now, is it not so?' He shook his head. 'Alas! no, madame,' he sighed. 'I am engaged to be married.' 'And mademoiselle is jealous?' she inquired, with a little pout. 'There is no woman in the world,' he told her, 'who would not be jealous of Madame Félanie.' She laughed at him with something of her old gaiety, threw herself back in her chair and passed him the cigarettes. 'We have a few minutes longer, at least,' she pleaded, 'before we make our pathetic farewells. You have not lost the gift of saying pleasant things, Ambrose.' 'Nor you, Adèle, the art of inspiring them,' he replied. 'Oh, là, là!' she exclaimed lightly. 'Tell me of your life here in London? Tell me why you came to renew our acquaintance if it is to be only a matter of this one visit?' He had refused her offer of a chair and the cigarette, still unlit, was between his fingers. 'Yes, I will tell you that,' he said. 'You read, without a doubt, of the sinking of the _Marabic_?' She shrugged her shoulders. 'Who has talked of anything else in London these few days?' 'I was amongst the saved,' he continued, 'I and the young lady to whom I am engaged to be married. We were in the last boat that left the ship and lost everything except the clothes we stood up in. That circumstance has, to a certain extent, changed my outlook upon this struggle.' There was the slightest of frowns upon her velvet brow. She waited. He had the air of one, however, who has concluded all he has to say. He turned towards the door. She stopped him with an imperative gesture. 'You have not given me the promise I desire--I demand?' she cried. 'Monsieur Ambrose, you will not leave me like this?' 'That promise,' he said gravely, 'is yours--conditionally.' His departure was a little abrupt and her gesture to recall him too late. She sat for a moment thinking, a curious shadow upon her face. Then she touched the bell. 'Ask Monsieur Anders to spare me a moment,' she directed her maid. There was a brief interval, then the sound of a cheerful whistling outside. The door was opened and Monsieur Anders himself appeared. He was a small man with a strangely-lined face, a mouth whose humour triumphed even over his plastic make-up. He was attired with great magnificence in the costume of a beau of the last century. His fingers glittered with rings, lace cuffs fell over his wrists and a little waft of peculiar perfume entered with him. It was not for nothing that for many years he had been considered upon the French stage the embodiment of a certain type of elegance. 'You have had a visitor, _chérie_?' he remarked.