He half put out his hand, and drew it back. "I am to find that out, too, very soon," he said. The clock downstairs chimed ten. Eric jumped up like a person with a train to catch. He had taken me into his counsels prematurely like this, he said, because he wanted to feel sure that I wasn't putting any wrong construction on the fact of his burying himself for these next days. "I like to think you are understanding. If I have any good news, I'll come and tell you. If you don't hear, you'll know I don't dare let go my clue even for an hour, except to sleep." And now he must go. I went with him as far as the gate. He walked with head bent, and eyes that saw things hidden from me. Already he was back in the Bungalow. I felt the misery of being deserted. But I felt, too, the strong intelligence, the iron purpose, in the man. And though I was torn and aching, I was proud. For all my jealousy, as I saw the mouth so firm-set under the red-brown thatch, saw the colour in his face, something reached me, too, of the heat of this passion to find out--something of the absorption of the man of science in his task. Here was the new kind of soldier going to his post. I held out my hand. "Good luck!" He took it, then dropped it quickly. And quickly, without once looking back, he walked away. I watched him hurrying across the links till one of the heath hollows swallowed him up. As I turned to go back to my thyme-planting, I heard the dog-cart rattling along the stony road. Madame Aurore! I never finished planting the thyme. CHAPTER XXIV MADAME AURORE Madame Aurore was little and wasted and shrill. She had deep scars in her neck, and dead-looking yellow hair. She was drenched in cheap scent. Her untidy, helter-skelter dress gave no hint of the admirable taste she lavished upon others. She saw at once what we ought to have, and she talked about our clothes with an enthusiasm as great as Betty's own. "Ah, but _Madame_!" she remonstrated dramatically, when my mother showed her the new white satin, which was for me, and a creamy lace gown which was to be modernised for Bettina--"not _boet_ vhite!" My mother explained that my gown was to have rose-coloured garnishing. "Mais non! mais _non_!" Madame must pardon her for the liberty, but she, Madame Aurore, could not bring herself to see our chief advantage thrown away. What, then, was our chief advantage? Betty demanded. What indeed, but the contrast between us. The moment she laid eyes on the hair of Mademoiselle Bettina she had said to herself: the frock of Mademoiselle Bettina should be that tender green of tilleul--with just a note of bleu de ciel. Oh, a dress of spring-time--an April dress, a gay little dress, for all its tenderness! A dress to make happy the heart of all who look thereon. But "green!" We had sent all the way to London for the white satin, and we had no green.