She met Selden’s sound of protest with a sharp derisive glance. “Well, what’s the use of mincing matters? We all know that’s what Bertha brought her abroad for. When Bertha wants to have a good time she has to provide occupation for George. At first I thought Lily was going to play her cards well THIS time, but there are rumours that Bertha is jealous of her success here and at Cannes, and I shouldn’t be surprised if there were a break any day. Lily’s only safeguard is that Bertha needs her badly—oh, very badly. The Silverton affair is in the acute stage: it’s necessary that George’s attention should be pretty continuously distracted. And I’m bound to say Lily DOES distract it: I believe he’d marry her tomorrow if he found out there was anything wrong with Bertha. But you know him—he’s as blind as he’s jealous; and of course Lily’s present business is to keep him blind. A clever woman might know just the right moment to tear off the bandage: but Lily isn’t clever in that way, and when George does open his eyes she’ll probably contrive not to be in his line of vision.” Selden tossed away his cigarette. “By Jove—it’s time for my train,” he exclaimed, with a glance at his watch; adding, in reply to Mrs. Fisher’s surprised comment—“Why, I thought of course you were at Monte!”—a murmured word to the effect that he was making Nice his head-quarters. “The worst of it is, she snubs the Brys now,” he heard irrelevantly flung after him. Ten minutes later, in the high-perched bedroom of an hotel overlooking the Casino, he was tossing his effects into a couple of gaping portmanteaux, while the porter waited outside to transport them to the cab at the door. It took but a brief plunge down the steep white road to the station to land him safely in the afternoon express for Nice; and not till he was installed in the corner of an empty carriage, did he exclaim to himself, with a reaction of self-contempt: “What the deuce am I running away from?”