Everything was fraught with presages of fate: when she walked beside him; when they rode side by side in the Bois de Boulogne; when they sat in the twilight and he heard her clear and childlike voice; when in the palm garden she teased her little monkeys; when she listened to Susan at the piano and let the bright stones glide through her fingers. One evening when he was leaving he met Jean Cardillac at the gate. They greeted each other. Then involuntarily Christian stopped and looked after the man, whose huge form threw a gigantic shadow on the steps. Invisible little slaves seemed to follow this shadow, all bearing treasures to be laid at Eva’s feet. An involuntary determination crystallized in him. It seemed important to measure his strength against this shadow’s. He turned back and the servants let him pass. Cardillac and Eva were in the picture gallery. She was curled up on a sofa, rolled up almost like a snake. Not far from those two, on a low stool, sat Susan impassive but with burning eyes. “You’ve promised to drive with me to the races at Longchamp, Eva,” said Christian. He stood by the door to show that he desired nothing else. “Yes, Eidolon. Why the reminder?” answered Eva without moving, but with a flush on her cheeks. “Quite alone with me----?” “Yes, Eidolon, quite alone.” “My dream suddenly came back to me, and I thought of that train that wouldn’t stop.” She laughed at the naïve and amiable tone of his words. Her eyes grew gentle and she laid her head back on the pillows. Then she looked at Cardillac, who arose silently. “Good-night,” said Christian and went. It was during these days that Denis Lay had arrived in Paris. Crammon had expected him and now welcomed him with ardour. “He is the one man living who is your equal and who competes with you in my heart,” Crammon had said to Christian. Denis was the second son of Lord Stainwood. He had had a brilliant career at Oxford, where his exploits had been the talk of the country. He had formed a new party amid the undergraduates, whose discussions and agitations had spared no time-honoured institutions. At twenty-two he was not only a marksman, hunter, fisherman, sailor, and boxer, but a learned philologist. He was handsome, wealthy, radiant with life, and surrounded by a legend of mad pranks and by a halo of distinction and elegance--the last and finest flower of his class and nation. Christian recognized his qualities without envy and the two became friends at once. One evening he was entertaining Cardillac, Crammon, Wiguniewski, Denis Lay, the Duchess of Marivaux, and Eva Sorel. And it was on this occasion that Eva, in the presence of the whole company, lightly broke the promise that she had given him.