Liane knew Nice well. Some of the most weary anxious and monotonous days of her life had been spent in a well-remembered frowsy room high up in that narrow back street which smelt eternally of garlic, where they had lived for nine months almost penniless. In those days when the Fates were unkind neither she nor Nelly ever ventured upon the Promenade in the day-time, because their dresses were too dowdy, and they feared lest they should encounter some of the people with whom they had become acquainted when living at the big hotels at Monte Carlo, Mentone, or Cannes, as they did when their father prospered. Yet she had now come back to the town she once abhorred. Her father had sufficient to keep them both respectably and in comfort, and Zertho was almost, if not quite, a millionaire. Fortune they had so often courted had smiled at last upon them all. They were almost constantly at the Villa Chevrier. Each morning the Prince would call with his tandem and take her for a drive, returning in time for half an hour's walk on the Promenade before _dejeuner_, then a lazy afternoon, a dinner with guests, a visit to the Opera, to the Casino, or perhaps to a ball. So passed the warm, brilliant days delightfully. People soon began to inquire who was the handsome, sweet-faced English girl with whom the Prince was seen so often, but Liane, entirely ignorant of Zertho's mysterious influence over her father, or of his motive, merely regarded him with the cordiality of an old friend. Zertho, even in the old days, had always treated her with studied courtesy, had often bought her sweetmeats and flowers, and was fond of teasing her good-humouredly and promising to find her a wealthy husband. It was he who had made both girls unexpected presents of bicycles after their return to England, and never once, even when almost penniless, had he forgotten to send them some trifle on their birthdays. Although he had been her friend she nevertheless had regarded him with some slight, ill-defined mistrust. Why, she had never been able to determine.