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Sir Roger loyally carried out his bargain. Lady Deane was hurried on, leaving Marseilles, with its varied types of humanity and its profound social significance, practically unexplored; Aries and Amphitheatre, in spite of the beckoning “star,” were dropped out of the programme, and the next day found the party at Avignon. And now they were once more for a moment in harmony. Dora could spare twenty-four hours; Lady Deane and the General were mollified by conscious unselfishness; the prospect of a fresh struggle at Paris lay well in the background and was discreetly ignored; Charlie Ellerton, who had reached the most desperate stage of love, looked neither back nor forward. It was enough for him to have wrung four-and-twenty hours of Dora’s company from fate’s reluctant grasp. He meant to make the most of it.

She and he sat, on the afternoon of their arrival, in the gardens, hard by the Cathedral, where Lady Deane and the General wore doing their duty. Sir Roger had chartered a cab and gone for a drive on the boulevards.

“And we shall really be in Paris to-morrow night?” said Dora. “And in England, I hope, six-and-thirty hours afterwards. I want papa to cross the next evening. Mr. Ellerton, I believe we shall be in time.”

Charlie said nothing. He seemed to be engrossed by the magnificent view before him.

“Well? Have you nothing to say?” she asked.

“It’s a sin to rush through a place like this,” he observed. “We ought to stay a week. There’s no end to see. It’s an education!”

By way, probably, of making the most of his brief opportunity, he went on gazing, across the river which flowed below, now towards the heights of Mont Ventoux, now at the ramparts of Villeneuve. Dora, on the other hand, fixed pensive eyes on his curly hatless head, which leant forward as he rested his elbows on his knees. He had referred to the attractions of Avignon in tones of almost overpowering emotion.

Presently he turned his head towards her with a quick jerk.

“I don’t want to be in time,” he said, and, with equal rapidity, he returned to his survey of Villeneuve.

Dora made no answer, unless a perplexed wrinkle on her brow might serve for one. A long silence followed. It was broken at last by Charlie. He left the landscape with a sigh of satisfaction, as though he could not reproach himself with having neglected it, and directed his gaze into his companion’s eyes. Dora blushed and pulled the brim of her hat a little lower down over her brow.

“What’s more,” said Charlie, in deliberate tones, and as if no pause had occurred between this remark and his last, “I don’t believe you do.”

Dora started and straightened herself in her seat; it looked as if the rash remark were to be met with a burst of indignation, but, a second later, she leant back again and smiled scornfully.

“How can you be so silly, Mr. Ellerton?” she asked.

“We both of us,” pursued Charlie, “see now that we made up our minds to be very foolish; we both of us mistook our real feelings; we’re beginning–at least I began some time ago, and you’re beginning now–to understand the true state of affairs.”

“Oh, I know what you mean, and I ought to be very angry, I suppose; but it’s too absurd.”

“Not in the least. The absurd thing is your fancying that you care about this follow Ashforth.”

“No, you must really stop, you must indeed. I don’t—-“

“I know the sort of fellow he is–a dull dry chap, who makes love as if he was dancing a minuet.”

“You’re quite wrong.”

“And kisses you as if it was part of the church service.”

This last description, applied to John Ashforth’s manner of wooing, had enough of aptness to stir Dora into genuine resentment.

“A Girl doesn’t like a man less because he respects her; nor more because he ridicules better men than himself.”

“Don’t be angry. I’m only saying what’s true. Why should I want to run him down?”