Here the break of dawn finds him--still sleepless, but lost in a waking dream of “_La Blonde aux yeux noir_.” [Illustration] CHAPTER V. DRIFTING. “A year divides us--love from love, Though you love now, though I loved then, The gulf is straight, but deep enough, Who shall recross--who among men Shall cross again?” “You came in very late last night, darling,” Zai says, a little reproachfully, as she sits _en peignoir_--but a _peignoir_ daintily got up, with Valenciennes and pink ribbons, and looks divinely fair at the head of the breakfast-table. “There was a carriage accident on the Boulevard, and I helped the occupants to get out,” he answers. It is the first falsehood he has uttered to his wife, and in spite of him a tinge of red sweeps across his fair skin, to hide which he buries his face in his coffee-cup. “Were the occupants _ladies_?” Zai asks, with a sensation of incipient jealousy. She has learned to think this husband of hers so superbly handsome and irresistible that she believes all other women must consider him so likewise. “Yes, ladies--_old_ ladies, going home from some concert. They were terribly frightened, poor old girls,” he says, coolly. “And how did you amuse yourself, darling?--and did you talk to anyone?” “Why, you’ve grown into the Grand Inquisitor, my pet! I went to the theatre and I talked to Shropshire and Silverlake.” “_Those_ men!” she says with a little _moue_. “They are dreadfully fast, are they not, Delaval?” “So so!” “Were Lady Shropshire and Lady Silverlake there?” “Oh, no!--the husbands are doing Paris _en garçon_.” “How very horrid!” she decides. “_You_ wouldn’t care to go about _en garçon_, would you, my own?” “_Certainly_ not,” he answers fervently. But he has made up his mind to go out _en garçon_ all the same. “And how’s baby?” he inquires unctuously, in the hope of turning the subject. “He’s very well. I am sure he has grown half-an-inch in the last few days, and I really think he tried to say ‘pa--pa’ this morning, Delaval!” “Did he really! Dear little chap!” “Yes! and Madame Le Blanc tells me that she has been a monthly-nurse for thirty years, and that its the first time she has ever heard a child of two months-and-a-half pronounce so plainly!” “Why the little chap must be the infant prodigy! Pity he’s so beastly red!” “_Red_, Delaval! Why he’s exactly like Dresden China!” she replies, with intense mortification. He gives a forced laugh. Then he pushes his plate away, with the devilled kidneys untouched, for he has no appetite. And leaning back in his chair, looks at his wife. And he comes to the conclusion that he ought to be thoroughly ashamed of himself. There she is, facing him. Could any creature of mortal mould be sweeter, lovelier, purer, more adorable? _And yet!_