At mention of it he saw a new light kindle in Eve’s eyes.  Her breath came more quickly, gentle emotion agitated her bosom.

Monsieur knew New York?

But well:  he had been there as a boy, again as a young man; and then later, in the year when America entered the Great War; not since ...

“It is my home,” said Eve de Montalais softly, looking away.

(One noted that she said “is”—­not “was.”)

So Duchemin had understood.  Madame had not visited her home recently?

Not in many years; not in fact since nineteen-thirteen.  She assumed the city must have changed greatly.

Duchemin thought it was never the same, but forever changing itself overnight, so to speak; and yet always itself, always like no other city in the world, fascinating....

“Fascinating?  But irresistible!  How I long for it!” She was distrait for an instant.  “My New York!  Monsieur—­would you believe?—­I dream of it!”

He had found a key to one chamber in the mansion of her confidence.  As much to herself as to him, unconsciously dropping into English, she began to talk of her life “at home"....

Her father had been a partner in a great jewellery house, Cottier’s, of Paris, London, and New York. (So that explained it!  She was wearing the blue diamond again tonight, with other jewels worth, in the judgment of a keen connoisseur, a king’s ransom.) Schooled at an exclusive establishment for the daughters of people of fashion, Eve at an early age had made her debut; but within the year her father died, and her mother, whose heart had always been in the city of her nativity, closed the house on East Fifty-seventh street and removed with her daughter to Paris.  There Eve had met her future husband.  Shortly after, her mother died.  Eve returned to New York to attend to some business in connection with her estate, remaining only a few weeks, leaving almost reluctantly; but the new love was very sweet, she had looked forward joyfully to the final transplanting of her affections.

And then the War, the short month of long, long days in the apartment on the avenue des Champs-Elysees, waiting, waiting, while the earth trembled to the tramp of armed men and the tireless rumbling of caissons and camions, and the air was vibrant with the savage dialogue of cannon, ever louder, daily more near....

She fell silent, sitting with bowed head and gaze remote.

From the splendid jewels that adorned the fingers twisting together in her lap, the firelight struck coruscant gleams.

“Now I hate Paris, I wish never to see it again.”

Duchemin uttered a sympathetic murmur.

“But New York—?”

“Ah, but sometimes I think I would give anything to be there once more!”

The animation with which this confession was delivered proved transient.

“Then I remind myself I have no one there—­a few friends, yes, acquaintances; but no family ties, no one dear to me.”