It was only a matter of seconds that they were both silent. But it seemed an interminable time. Walter looked down into the glowing fireplace--struggling with the thing which burned within him more hotly than the coals. After all--why not? It is horrible to be lonely. "You foolish boy," she said, with an uneasy laugh, "I didn't mean to be taken so literally." "I guess it's the only way for us--if we want to cheer up." He snapped his half-burnt cigarette into the grate and turned towards her. Her face suddenly went white, and she swayed unsteadily. One hand waved aimlessly in the air, seeking support. He took it in his. The next few days the papers were full of the Expedition. The Marquis d'Hauteville came back from Semmering, and a large part of his statement was a tribute to Walter's ability and courage. The other members of the Expedition, with the delightful courtesy of the French, emphasized his part in the Siege and exaggerated the perils he had run while bringing them relief. Paris dearly loves such sensations. Nothing pleases the gay city more than to idolize a foreigner. He did the best he could to escape the lionizing. There was much work still to do in the preparing of the report. He moved from the hotel to a quiet cottage in Passy and settled down to work--and play. Beatrice scrupulously respected his "duty hours," but once he was free from his desk, he plunged with her into a swirl of gayety, such as he had never before permitted himself. The follies of the "_Transatlantique_" set--the rich Americans of the Étoile district--interested him from their sheer novelty. Beatrice's incisive comments on the bogus aristocracy--the Roumanian Grand Dukes and Princes of the Papal States--who fattened off the gullibility of his countrymen amused him immensely. Their intimacy was strange indeed. Before his infatuation with Mabel, Walter had not been exactly a Puritan, but he had never experienced anything like this. No word of love ever passed between him and Beatrice. The hallowed phrases of affection were under the ban. They were feverishly engaged in trying to forget, in helping each other forget how hollow such words had proved. A feeling of delicacy restrained him from using the word "home," it had been such a mockery to her. And to have spoken to him of fidelity would have seemed to her rank cruelty. Only once did they talk together of the past. What he had to tell was told quickly. Her story was longer, and part of it she did not tell.