The Vicomte de Boissy, a short young man, with a small curled black moustache, a bad mouth, and somewhat dissipated eyes, dressed in a striped flannel suit and carrying a gold-knobbed malacca, met Minna as she alighted on the platform of the pretty little Monte Carlo station. He welcomed her with many compliments. She was ravishing. He scarcely dared hope she would do him the honour--even after her note had arrived. When he saw her descend from the railway carriage, he was dazzled. Minna looked at him with a little curl of disdain. Mrs. Delamere was right. He was a bit of a cad. And among such had her lot fallen. A tall, clean, high-bred Englishman passed her by. He reminded her of Hugh. “Women are fools, aren’t they, M. de Boissy?” she said, as they emerged from the lift, and were walking across the square, bright with shops and cafés, towards the great white casino. “But I suppose you settled that for yourself at the age of ten.” “_Ma foi_, Mademoiselle,” he replied, “there is no folly in being gracious to the most humble of your admirers.” “Oh! I wasn’t at all thinking of my coming to lunch with you to-day. You need not flatter yourself.” He pleaded for mercy, adroitly turned the conversation, touched upon the scandalous chronicle of the place and made her laugh. They strolled through the building to the gardens. The weather was a perfect Riviera March, the grounds gay with bright dresses. Now and then an acquaintance passed, generally masculine and foreign, and bowed low to her. At which times her companion drew himself up and put on airs of importance, which Minna’s half-closed eyes were shrewd to notice. At last she grew weary of walking. She asked him sharply whether they were ever going to lunch. He overwhelmed her with apologies, conducted her back through the casino and across the square to the Hôtel de Paris, where he had reserved a table. There, amid the popping of champagne corks, the cosmopolitan chatter, the sparkle of the scene, and the _grivois_ wit of her host, Minna threw off her sarcastic mood and jested recklessly. She was only capable of enjoyment now, when she had a little champagne in her head. It was natural that he should make love to her, with all the vulgarity of a cheap conqueror. Minna was used to the game. It pleased her to practise her arts of seduction. She knew that the caressing languor of her voice intoxicated the listener. He was the latest of innumerable wayfarers to whom she had held out the charmed cup. That she despised him added cynical zest. Besides, her own blood was stirred. A wanton woman does not turn men to swine for the mere fun of seeing them pigs. Boissy was in the slough of delight. His bad little face coarsened, his lips grew thick, his cheeks puffed up towards his eyes; he suggested a satyr debased by a civilised ancestry. In his mind, he was already bragging about his conquest to his friends. “I wish I had dared entertain you in a private room,” he said, leaning over the table.