“I’m staying at the Phares—­the swagger one on the beach near the Casino.”

“Excellent,” said I.  “Go on swaggering.  Good-bye.”

“Good-bye, old pal,” said he.

He tilted his white hat to a rakish angle and marched away.

I rejoined Jaffery and Liosha.  He still held her wrists; but she stood unresisting, tense and rigid, with averted head, looking sidewise down.  Her lip quivered, her bosom heaved.  Jaffery had mastered her fury, but now we had to deal with her shame and humiliation.

“Let her go!” I whispered.

Jaffery freed her.  She rubbed her wrists mechanically, without moving her head.  I wished Barbara had been there; she would have known exactly what to do.  As it was, we stood by her, somewhat helplessly.

“Monsieur,” said a voice close by, and we saw our little blue-bloused porter.  He explained that he had been seeking us everywhere.  If we did not make haste we would lose the Paris train.

I replied that as we were not going to Paris, we were not pressed for time; but this little outside happening broke the situation.

“Better give this fellow your luggage ticket, Liosha,” said Jaffery.

She looked about her bewildered and then I noticed on the ground a leather satchel which she had been carrying.  I picked it up.  She extracted the ticket and we all went to the custom-house.

“What’s the programme now?” I asked Jaffery.

“Hotel,” said he.  “This poor girl will want a rest.  Besides, we’ll have to stay the night.”

“Our friend is staying at the Hotel des Phares.”

“Then we’ll go to Tortoni’s.”

An ordinary woman would have drawn down the motor veil which she wore cockled-up on her travelling hat; but Liosha, grandly unconcerned with such vanities, showed her young shame-stricken face to all the world.  I felt intensely sorry for her.  She realised now from what a blatant scoundrel she had been saved; but she still bitterly resented our intervention.  “I felt as if I was stripped naked walking between them”—­that was her primitive account later of her state of mind.

“Barbara,” said I, “sent you her very dear love.”

She nodded, without looking at me.

“Barbara would have come too, if Susan had not been ill.”

She gave a little start.  I thought she was about to speak; but she remained silent.  We entered the customs-shed, when she attended mechanically to her declarations.

On emerging free into the open air again, we found that the cheery sun had pierced the morning clouds and gave promise of a glorious day.  The luggage was piled on the hotel omnibus.  We took an open cab and rattled through the narrow flag-paved streets of the harbour quarter of the town.  As we emerged into a more spacious thoroughfare, suddenly from a gaudy column at the corner flared the name of Ras Fendihook.  I caught the heading of the affiche:  “Music-Hall-Eldorado.”