“Then you … you … you are my stepson-to-be?” gasped the fortunate one of seven potentials. “Keep calm, sir, I beg,” said Gaveston sternly. “Let us have no scenes in so public a place.” “But you are, aren’t you?” “The relationship is unlikely,” Gav replied, with an oh! how characteristically faint smile. “My mother almost always follows my advice. Would you like to see it? Here it is.” And drawing from his pocket the duplicate telegram, he passed it to du Val. _Lady Penhaligon Grand Hotel Bournemouth try Spirella instead Du Val wont do passionately fond Ortolans letter follows Love Gav._ Du Val grew sickly pale. “But it is nineteen words, Monsieur ffoulis. You said eighteen,” he ventured, but he assumed phlegm poorly. “Duval counts as one,” replied Gaveston frigidly. It was crushing. Ortolans … ortolans … the wretched fellow saw his life crashing about him, here in this gilded, glittering Palace of Pleasure. “Ze boat-train,” he muttered faintly as he rose. He rammed a broad-rimmed sombrero on his head and hurried from the Café. “Huh!” said Gaveston, looking at his wrist-watch. “He has still time.” And with no tremor of emotion he bade the waiter bring another Bronx. CHAPTER VI VOYAGE EN CYTHÈRE Outside the Café door, hard on midnight, Gaveston stood for a moment in delicious hesitation. There had, of course, been hours of dizzily brilliant talk as, one by one, the celebrities of pen and brush and chisel came forward to be presented. And Gaveston had triumphed, superbly. Somehow the evening and its experiences had made life more intricately beautiful, more complex in its manifold possibilities. Would he go back to the Albany by the Vigo Street entrance? Or would he rather walk abroad until dawn came, and then spend an hour in the cold, dim beauty of Covent Garden, watching the great wheeled wains of cauliflowers passing spectral through the morning mists? It was a prospect suddenly seductive in this new mood engendered by the marvellously _fin-de-siècle_ atmosphere of the gilded smoking-room. “’ullo, dearie!” he heard a timid quavering voice at his elbow. “Waitin’ for anybody in partic’lar?” He turned quickly. And the poor draggled little street-walker turned her starved, painted cheeks up to him under the hectic lamplight. A thin rain was drizzling down mercilessly.… A taxicab was cruising slowly along the edge of the pavement.… The street-lamps went on shining impassively.… The darkened houses towered above, secretly, ominously.… How long the night.… How cold the pavement of stone.… She laid her hand on his arm, wistfully a little, he thought.… Even in those world-weary features there was beauty left.… Something of graciousness and evanescent youth lingered still under the hard Cockney tang of her voice.… What history cowered beneath that monstrous masque of maquillage…? He would give much to know.…