Even then he grumbled profanely while Lanyard helped Athenais to climb in and took the place by her side.

The rue Pigalle was as dark and still as any street in a deserted village.  From its gloomy walls the halting clatter of hoofs struck empty echoes that rang in Lanyard’s heart like a refrain from some old song.  To that very tune had the gay world gone about its affaires in younger years, when the Lone Wolf was a living fact and not a fading memory in the minds of men...

He sighed heavily.

“Monsieur is sentimental,” commented Athenais Reneaux lightly.  “Beware!  Sentimentalists come always to some sad end.”

“One has found that true ...  But you are young to know it, Athenais.”

“A woman is never young—­after a certain age—­save when she loves, my friend.”

“That, too, is true.  But still you are overyoung to have learned it.”

“One learns life’s lessons not in any fixed and predetermined order, Paul, with no sort of sequence whatever, but as and when Life chooses to teach them.”

“Quel dommage!” Lanyard murmured, and subsided into another silence.

The girl grew restive.  “But tell me, my dear Don Juan,” she protested:  “Do all your conquests affect you in this morbid fashion?”

“Conquests?”

“You seemed to get on very well with Liane Delorme.”

“Pardon.  If I am sentimental, it is because old memories have been awakened to-night, memories of forfeit days when one thought well of oneself, here in Paris.”

“Days in which, no doubt, Liane played a part?”

“A very minor role, Athenais ...  But are you doing me the honour to be jealous?”

“Perhaps, petit Monsieur Paul...”

In the broken light of passing lamps her quiet smile was as illegible as her shadowed eyes.

After a moment Lanyard laughed a little, caught up her hand, patted it indulgently, and with gentle decision replaced it in her lap.

“It isn’t fair, my dear, to be putting foolish notions into elderly heads merely because you know you can do it.  Show a little respect for my grey hairs, of which there are far too many.”

“They’re most becoming,” said Athenais Reneaux demurely.  “But tell me about Liane, if it isn’t a secret.”

“Oh! that was so long ago and such a trifling thing, one wonders at remembering it at all....  I happened, one night, to be where I had no right to be.  That was rather a habit of mine, I’m afraid.  And so I discovered, in another man’s apartment, a young woman, hardly more than a child, trying to commit suicide.  You may believe I put a stop to that....  Later, for in those days I had some little influence in certain quarters, I got her place in the chorus at the Varietes.  She made up a name for the stage:  Liane Delorme.  And that is all.  You see, it was very simple.”

“And she was grateful?”

“Not oppressively.  She was quite normal about it all.”