Bobby appeared immaculately vestured, his heart overflowing with gratitude at the amazing sweetness of his two dear ladies. Never had man been blessed with such fairy godmothers. By the fresh frankness of his appreciation of their hospitality he disarmed criticism. A younger son hanging on to the court of Louis XIII never received purses of gold from his lady love with less embarrassed grace. He devoted himself to their service. He had the art of tactful effacement, and of appearance at the exact moment of welcome. He enlivened their meals with chatter and a boyish brightness that passed for wit. To Olivia, the dearest of his dear ladies, he confided the pathetic history of his life. A sunny, sheltered corner of the Pier, both sitting side by side well wrapped in furs, conduced to intimacy. How a young man in such a precarious financial position could afford to wear a fur-lined coat with a new astrachan collar it did not strike Olivia to enquire. That he, like herself, was warm on that sun-filled morning, with the sea dancing and sparkling away beyond them, and human types around them exuding the prosperity of peace, seemed sufficient for the comfortable hour. He spoke of his early years of ease, of his modest patrimony coming to an end soon after the war broke out; of his commission in a yeomanry regiment; of his heart-break as the months went on and the chance of the regiment being sent to the front grew less and less; of his exchange into a regiment of the line; of the rotten heart that gave out after a month in France; of his grief at being invalided out of the army and his struggles and anxieties when he returned to civil life, branded as physically unfit. He had tried the stage, musical comedy, male youth in the manless chorus being eagerly welcomed; then, after a little training, he found he had the dancer’s gift. “So one thing led to another,” said he, “and that’s my history.” “But surely,” said Olivia, “all this dancing and these late hours must be very bad for your heart.” He smiled sadly. “What does it matter? I’m no use to anybody, and nobody cares whether I’m dead or alive.” Olivia protested warmly. “The world is crying out for young men of three-and-twenty. You could be useful in a million ways.” “Not a crock like me.” “You could go into an office.” “Yes. In at one door and out of another. Hopeless.” He drew from a slim gold case a Turkish cigarette—Olivia, minutely hospitable, had put a box of a hundred in his room—and tapped it thoughtfully. “After all, which is better—to carry on with life like a worm—which anyhow perisheth, as the Bible tells us—or to go out like a butterfly, with a bit of a swagger?” “But you mustn’t talk of going out,” cried Olivia. “It’s indecent.” Bobby lighted his cigarette. “Who would care?” “I, for one,” she replied. Her health and sanity revolted against morbid ideas. He stretched out his hand, and, with the tips of his fingers, touched her coat, and he bent his dark brown eyes upon her.