“Listen, my friend.”  Eve de Montalais flicked away her cigarette and sat forward, elbows on knees, hands laced, her level gaze holding his.  “It is true, our acquaintance is barely three weeks old; but you do injustice to my insight if you assume I have learned nothing about you in all that time.  You have not been secretive with me.  The mask you hold between yourself and the world, lest it pry into what does not concern it, has been lowered when you have talked with me; and I have had eyes to see what was revealed—­”

“Ah, madame!”

“—­the nature of a man of honour, monsieur, simple of heart and generous, as faithful as he is brave.”

Eve had spoken impulsively, with warmth of feeling unrealised until too late.  Now slow colour mantled her cheeks.  But her eyes remained steadfast, candid, unashamed.  It was Duchemin who dropped his gaze, abashed.

And though nothing had any sense in his understanding other than the words which he had just heard from the lips of the woman who held his love—­as he had known now these many days—­some freak of dual consciousness made him see, for the first time, in that moment, how oddly bleached and wasted seemed the powerful, nervous, brown hands that rested on his knees.  And he thought:  It will be long before I am strong again.

With a troubled smile he said:  “I would give much to be worthy of what you think of me, madame.  And I would be a poor thing indeed if I failed to try to live up to your faith.”

“You will not fail,” she replied.  “What you are, you were before my faith was, and will be afterwards, when...”

She did not finish, but of a sudden recollected herself, lounged back in her chair, and laughed quietly, with humorous appeal to his sympathy.

“So, that is settled:  I am not to be permitted to take my jewels to Paris alone.  What then, monsieur?”

“I would suggest you write your bankers,” said Duchemin seriously, “and tell them that you contemplate bringing to Paris some valuables to entrust to their care.  Say that you prefer not to travel without protection, and request them to send you two trusted men—­detectives, they may call them—­to guard you on the way.  They will do so without hesitation, and you may then feel entirely at ease.”

“Not otherwise, you think?”

“Not otherwise, I feel sure.”

“But why?  You have been so persistent about this matter, monsieur.  Ever since that night when those curious people stopped here in the rain....  Can it be that you suspect them of evil designs upon my trinkets?” Duchemin shrugged.  “Who knows, madame, what they were?  You call them ‘curious’; for my part I find the adjective apt.”

“I fancy I know what you thought about them...”

“And that is—?”

“That they rather led the conversation to the subject of my jewels.”

“Such was my thought, indeed.”

“Perhaps you were right.  If so, they learned all they needed to know.”