“Paint,” she said; “and I’m little older than you.”

“You will be younger than I am, soon.”

She paled a trifle under the red.

“Are you losing your reason, Louis?”

“No, but I’ve contrived to lose everything else.  It was a losing game from the beginning—­for both of us.”

“Are you going to be coward enough to drop your cards and quit the game?”

“Call it that.  But the cards are marked and the game crooked—­as crooked as Herby’s.”  He began to laugh.  “The world’s dice are loaded; I’ve got enough.”

“Yet you beat Bertie in spite of—­”

“For Portlaw’s sake.  I wouldn’t fight with marked cards for my own sake.  Faugh! the world plays a game too rotten to suit me.  I’ll drop my hand and—­take a stroll for a little fresh air—­out yonder—­” He waved his arm toward the rising sun.  “Just a step into the fresh air, Helen.”

“Are you not afraid?” She managed to form the words with stiffened lips.

“Afraid?” He stared at her.  “No; neither are you.  You’ll do it, too, some day.  If you don’t want to now, you will later; if you have any doubts left they won’t last.  We have no choice; it’s in us.  We don’t belong here, Helen; we’re different.  We didn’t know until we’d tried to live like other people, and everything went wrong.”  A glint of humour came into his eyes.  “I’ve made up my mind that we’re extra-terrestrial—­something external and foreign to this particular star.  I think it’s time to ask for a transfer and take the star ahead.”

Not a muscle moved in her expressionless face; he shrugged and drew out his watch.

“I’m sorry, Helen—­”

“Is it time to go?”

“Yes....  Why do you stick to that little cockney pup?”

“I don’t know.”

“You ruined a decent man to pick him out of the gutter.  Why don’t you drop him back?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you—­ah—­care for him?”

“No.”

“Then why—­”

She shook her head.

“Quite right,” said Malcourt, rising; “you’re in the wrong planet, too.  And the sooner you realise it the sooner we’ll meet again.  Good-bye.”

She turned horribly pale, stammering something about his coming with her, resisting a little as he drew her out, down the stairs, and aided her to enter the depot-wagon.  There he kissed her; and she caught him around the neck, holding him convulsively.

“Nonsense,” he whispered.  “I’ve talked it all over with father; he and I’ll talk it over some day with you.  Then you’ll understand.”  And backing away he called to the coachman:  “Drive on!” ignoring his brother-in-law, who sat huddled in a corner, glassy eyes focused on him.

* * * * *

Portlaw almost capered with surprise and relief when at breakfast he learned that the Tressilvains had departed.

“Oh, everything is coming everybody’s way,” said Malcourt gaily—­“like the last chapter of a bally novel—­the old-fashioned kind, Billy, where Nemesis gets busy with a gun and kind Providence hitches ’em up in ever-after blocks of two.  It takes a rotten novelist to use a gun on his villains!  It’s never done in decent literature—­never done anywhere except in real life.”