“Ada?”

“Ada’s a new servant.  She’s just gone in there again to see how long the barber will be.”  Mimi indicated a barber’s shop opposite.  “And I’m waiting here,” she added.

“Mimi,” he said, in a confidential tone, “can you keep a secret?”

She grew solemn.  “Yes.”  She smiled seriously.  “What?”

“About meeting me.  Don’t tell anybody you’ve met me to-day.  See?”

“Not Jean?”

“No, not Jean.  But later on you can tell—­when I give you the tip.  I don’t want anybody to know just now.”

It was a shame.  He knew it was a shame.  He deliberately flattered her by appealing to her as to a grown woman.  He deliberately put a cajoling tone into his voice.  He would not have done it if Mimi had not been Mimi—­if she had been an ordinary sort of English girl.  But she was Mimi.  And the temptation was very strong.  She promised, gravely.  He knew that he could rely on her.

Hurrying away lest Jean and the servant might emerge from the barber’s, he remembered with compunction that he had omitted to show any curiosity about Mimi’s back.

III

The magnificent woman was to be waiting for him in the lounge of the Royal York Hotel at a quarter to four.  She was coming in to Brighton by the Rottingdean omnibus, which function, unless the driver changes his mind, occurs once in every two or three hours.  He, being under the necessity of telephoning to London on urgent business, had hired a bicycle and ridden in.  Despite the accident to this prehistoric machine, he arrived at the Royal York half a minute before the Rottingdean omnibus passed through the Old Steine and set down the magnificent woman his wife.  The sight of her stepping off the omnibus really did thrill him.  They entered the hotel together, and, accustomed though the Royal York is to the reception of magnificent women, Olive made a sensation therein.  As for him, he could not help feeling just as though he had eloped with her.  He could not help fancying that all the brilliant company in the lounge was murmuring under the strains of the band:  “That johnny there has certainly eloped with that splendid creature!”

“Ed,” she asked, fixing her dark eyes upon him, “is anything the matter?”

They were having tea at a little Moorish table in the huge bay window of the lounge.

“No,” he said.  This was the first lie of his career as a husband.  But truly he could not bring himself to give her the awful shock of telling her that the Vaillacs were close at hand, that their secret was discovered, and that their peace and security depended entirely upon the discretion of little Mimi and upon their not meeting other Vaillacs.

“Then it’s having that puncture that has upset you,” his wife insisted.  You see her feelings towards him were so passionate that she could not leave him alone.  She was utterly preoccupied by him.