"You aren't nervous?" McTaggart looked surprised--"I mean, of staying here alone all night." "Oh, dear no." She shrugged her shoulders. "I could ring up the porter in case of need." She studied her face a moment in the glass, fingering the tulle that covered her shoulders. "I think perhaps... Yes!--I'll get out of this and slip into a comfortable tea-gown. You don't mind waiting, do you, Pierrot? I shan't be long." She turned to the door, then came back again with a forced smile. "I wonder--could you undo these hooks." She turned her back to him as she spoke. "I can manage all the rest ... but just those between the shoulders?" Gallantly McTaggart stooped to the task. As the tulle fell away, leaving her neck bare, a sudden temptation seized the man. He lowered his head and kissed the warm flesh, honey-tinted, and soft to his lips. But she swung round quickly with an incoherent cry. "Non, non, Pierrot--je ne veux pas!" Her face looked frightened. She thrust him back, a sudden remorse awake in her heart. McTaggart laughed. She read in his eyes amusement at her show of resistance. And the knowledge of this and his lack of respect swept aside her lingering scruples. Her mood veered round. A feverish exultation spurred her now down the path of revenge. "Naughty boy!" She shook her head and was gone, with a laughing backward glance. Left to himself, McTaggart strolled about, stretching his long legs, cramped in the box. A memory brought him back to the mantelpiece, and he sought for and found the faded photograph. Once more he gazed at the sinister face, with its black beard and evil eyes. It held a curious fascination for him, repulsive and mesmeric at the same time. He saw that a name was written beneath, indistinct in violet ink, and holding it nearer to the light he deciphered "Gustave," with a slight start. Below it was a blotted date and then "Alger" clear and bright, where a frame had once protected the edge. He put it back behind the mirror, a frown on his face, his mouth tight. So that was the husband. What a brute! ... His pity stirred beneath his disgust. He thought of Fantine, dainty and sweet, at the mercy of such a type. Thank God the man was dead! He recalled her remark in the restaurant, the night they had dined at the "Bon Bourgeois." "He was always very kind to me..." "Kind?"--with those eyes!--He shuddered slightly, connecting the pair in his mind. Poor little woman ... what a life! It sobered him, bringing the best to the surface, and he turned with a very real affection on his handsome face as she opened the door. But here was a new irresistible Fantine. With bright eyes, she danced toward him, mischief incarnate, her pale face laughing above a peignoir, diaphanous, intimate; showing gleams of silk-shod ankles through the daring draperies.