Meanwhile, she redoubled her efforts to entrance Gratian, and the day of their flight had but to be fixed.  On hearing from Madame Clemenceau that Von Sendlingen was the chief of surveillance at the coterie, the dread that he was his rival in the contest for Cesarine, filled his cup to overflowing with disgust.  He had believed himself chief of the fraternity in France, and behold! another was set over him and probably reported that he neglected the business to pay court to a married woman.  He felt that he was lost and that his only chance to secure the beloved one was to step outside the circle which he knew would be the vortex of a whirlpool once war was proclaimed.

“You speak most timely,” he answered gravely, when she said that she was ready; “I have been notified to transfer the funds to another, in such terms as would better suit a clerk than a gentleman—­a noble intelligence officer.  That cursed major who learned the piano to be a means of torture to his fellow man! he has done it.  He loves you no longer, and he is my enemy since I looked at him being run away with, like a raw recruit, on his first troop-horse.  He will, believe me, be our destroyer unless we levant.”

Nothing was easier.  Since four days, Clemenceau had been invisible, even at meals.  Closeted with his disciple Antonino, they worked out some more than ever preposterous conceptions into substance, in the studio where the uncompleted artistic models had been neglected.  Hedwig was the false wife’s bondwoman and would actively help in the removal of her trunks.  The viscount had but to send a trusty man with a vehicle, and the lady could meet him at a station of the Outer Circle Railway and thence proceed to a main station for Havre or Marseilles, as they selected.  The famous sight-drafts were safe on Gratian’s person.  With the simplicity of a child, Cesarine wished again and again to gloat over them; never could she be convinced that those flimsy pieces of paper stood for large sums of ready money and that bankers would pay simply on their presentation.  It was reluctantly that she restored the wallet to his inner pocket, of which she buttoned the flap, bidding him be so very, very careful of what would be their subsistence in the mango groves.

“Oh, how I love you,” he said, bewildered and enthralled; “I love you because you retain, after the finished graces of woman have come, the naive traits of the guileless girl.  What a joy that I divined your excellences when you were so young and that I was favored by your regard, and now am gladdened by your trustful smiles.”

“I trust you so much that I could wish this money did not weigh on your bosom.  I love you without it, and I shall love you as long as you live.”

Seeming to be as exalted as he, she grasped both his hands and drew his face nearer and nearer hers to look him in the eyes.

“I do not ask anything of you but to be good to me.  Do not reproach me for leaving my lawful lord for you!  If there is a fault in quitting him who neglects me, never cast it upon me.  Let us go! anywhere, if but you are ever beside me, to protect, to support and cherish!”