“Bridge!” I said. “Bridge? Bridge!” He looked terribly worried.... “Well, my wife wants--Oh, wait till I’m back! I’ll drop you anyway.” And he was off, his brown coat flouncing peevishly. Through the open door I could see Napier, his coat open, everything about him open, standing in what looked like a wide courtyard.... “_Mais quelle belle silhouette!_” chattered the old nun. “_Le vrai type brun anglais. Mais c’est naturel qu’il soit fou avec ces yeux là_....” Napier and Conrad Masters walked across the courtyard towards a tall red-looking building. Its door was pointed like a church door, and windows here and there were alight. Through one of them a nun was looking at me. On the sill outside the largest window of all, which was not alight, stood a pineapple and some grapes on a plate. V After that chill, stuffy lodge the night was like a kiss. The dark shapes of Masters’s Renault and Napier’s taxi faced each other, their dimmed lamps lighting only the darkness. The chauffeur of the Renault looked to be asleep at the wheel. I hoped Venice was asleep, too. The driver of the taxi was nowhere to be seen, and stealthily I was approaching the dark shape of the taxi, mentally communicating to Venice that it would be only decent of her to be asleep, when the taxi-driver emerged from the malodorous shape of the _lavabo_. “_Elle dorme, je crois_,” the fool shouted at the top of his voice, and I bolted into the capacious Renault. “Sorry to wake you,” came the mutter of Conrad Masters from the open door. “Where are you staying?” Through the front window I saw the door of the taxi close. Napier would tell Venice he had seen me, and she would be surprised I had not spoken with her. “You were asleep,” Napier would say, but she would still be surprised.... “Look here,” Masters said persuasively, one foot on the footboard, “why not come to my place for a while? Come along, it won’t kill you. A night-hawk like you. My wife has a party of some sort. Dancing, bridge, Parisian-Americans....” Dancing, bridge, Parisian-Americans! The end of a perfect day.... “It’s another form of septic poisoning,” I pleaded. “Take me to the Westminster, Masters, and let me sleep. And you’d better get a room there as well and spend the night in peace....” The taxi in front of us bumped and rattled away. Masters muttered wearily: “Well, I will probably have to take a hand if you don’t. Most of ’em dance, but I left three bridge maniacs stranded to come on here. They stay up to all hours, the blighters....” Smoothly the Renault picked its way among the pits and chasms of the fearful boulevards of outer Paris. “Their last chance of ever being mended,” Masters muttered, “went when the Germans lost the war....” “All right,” I said sulkily, “I’ll come. Bridge, dancing, Parisian-Americans.... What a monstrous life you lead, Masters. But what about that miracle?”