An appalling light came into Gora's pale eyes as she turned them, at first in some surprise, on her sister-in-law: "Yes, if I thought he cared ... could be made to care if I had the chance ... if another woman tried to get him away ... yes, I don't fancy I'd stop at anything.... Even if I finally were forced to believe that he never could care for me in that way, the only way that counts with men--at first, anyway ... well, I believe I'd fight to the death just the same. When you've waited for thirty-four years ... well, you know what you want! Better die fighting than live on interminably for nothing ... less than nothing.... I can't tell you any more. Please don't ask me." "Of course not. I'll tell you my little story." And she gave a rapid vivid account of the remarkable scene at the Embassy. She concluded abruptly: "Do you think one could tell that a man's eyes were hazel--the golden-brown hazel--across a pitch dark room above the flame of a briquet?" "Hazel?" Alexina was standing behind Gora. She saw her body stiffen. "I could have vowed they were hazel. And that he was English. He also reminded me of some one I must have met somewhere or other ... one meets so many ... possibly it was only a fancy." "You didn't see him after the lights went on again?" "They didn't. Only candles. We were all too anxious to get away, anyhow. I fancy the King was in a hurry to get the ambassador upstairs and tell him what he thought of him--" "Don't be flippant. You always did have a maddening habit of being flippant at the wrong time. Haven't you seen him again anywhere?" "I've walked the Rue de Rivoli and lunched at the Ritz looking for him; but I've never had even a glimpse--unless that was his back I saw at the Crillon to-day. If I saw his eyes I'd know in a minute." "Why should you think it was his back?" "Some men have expression in the back of their head. And I just had an idea--fantastic, no doubt--that my particular Englishman stands up straight." "Yours?" "Yes, I'm feeling quite too fearfully romantic. I'm sure he's looking for me as hard as I am for him. And if I find him I'll keep him." She saw Gora's long brown hands slowly clench until they looked like steel. She glanced at her own slim white hands. They were quite as strong if more ornamental. She yawned politely. "I'm not so romantic as sleepy. I know that you must be dead after your journey. They say it's more trouble to travel to Paris from London than from New York. The girls won't be back for a week. You must get your things to-morrow and come out here. I won't hear of your living in Paris discomfort with three two empty rooms." "That is good of you. Yes, I'll come. And perhaps your landlady, or whatever they call them here, could put me up later. Now that I have come to Paris I intend to see it. I believe some of the great galleries and museums are to be reopened."