Di grew suddenly pale, and her eyes looked violet instead of black.  “I don’t believe he’s going to Paris!” she exclaimed.

“I know he’s going.  And I know he’s going especially to see Maxine.”

“It can’t be.  He told me to-night he wouldn’t cross the street to see her.  I—­I made it a condition—­that if he found he cared enough for her to want to see her again, he must go, of course:  but he must give up all thought of me.  If I’m to reign, I must reign alone.”

“Well, then, on thinking it over, he probably did find that he wanted to see her.”

“No.  For he loved me just as much when we parted, only half an hour ago.”

“Yet at least two hours ago he’d arranged a meeting with Maxine for to-morrow afternoon.”

“You’re dreaming.”

“I was never wider awake:  or if I’m dreaming, you can dream the same dream if you’ll be at Victoria Station to-morrow, or rather this morning, when the boat train goes out at 10 o’clock.”

“I will be there!” cried Di, changing from red to white.  “And you shall be with me, to see that you’re wrong.  I know you will be wrong.”

“That’s an engagement,” said I.  “At 10 o’clock, Victoria Station, just you and I, and nobody else in the house the wiser.  If I’m right, and Ivor’s there, shall you think it wise to give him up?”

“He might be obliged to go to Paris, suddenly, for some business reason, without meaning to call on Maxine de Renzie—­in which case he’d probably write me.  But—­at the station, I shall ask him straight out—­that is, if he’s there, as I’m sure he won’t be—­whether he intends to see Mademoiselle de Renzie.  If he says no, I’ll believe him.  If he says yes—­”

“You’ll tell him all is over between you?”

“He’d know that without my telling, after our talk last night.”

“And whatever happens, you will say nothing about having heard Maxine’s name from me?”

“Nothing,” Di answered.  And I knew she would keep her word.

IVOR DUNDAS’ POINT OF VIEW

CHAPTER IV

IVOR TRAVELS TO PARIS

It is rather a startling sensation for a man to be caught suddenly by the nape of the neck, so to speak, and pitched out of heaven down to—­the other place.

But that was what happened to me when I arrived at Victoria Station, on my way to Paris.

I had taken my ticket and hurried on to the platform without too much time to spare (I’d been warned not to risk observation by being too early) when I came face to face with the girl whom, at any other time, I should have liked best to meet:  whom at that particular time I least wished to meet:  Diana Forrest.

“The Imp”—­Lisa Drummond—­was with her:  but I saw only Di at first—­Di, looking a little pale and harassed, but beautiful as always.  Only last night I had told her that Paris had no attractions for me.  I had said that I didn’t care to see Maxine de Renzie:  yet here I was on the way to see her, and here was Di discovering me in the act of going to see, her.