Lord Bracondale stayed awake for hours, but he did not sup with Esclarmonde de Chartres or Marion de Beauvoison.  And the Cafe de Paris—­and Maxims—­and the afterwards—­saw him no more.

Once again these houris asked each other, “Mais qu’est-ce qu’il a!  Ce bel Hector?  Ou se cache-t-il?”

VI

Before she went to bed in her hotel in the Rue de Rivoli, Monica Ellerwood wrote to her aunt.

     “PARIS, May 15th.

“MY DEAR AUNT MILLY,—­We have had a delicious little week, Jack and I, quite like an old honeymoon pair—­and to-day we ran across Hector, who has remained hidden until now.  He is looking splendid, just as handsome and full of life as ever, so it does not tell upon his constitution, that is one mercy!  Not like poor Ernest Bretherton, who, if you remember, was quite broken up by her last year.  And I have one good piece of news for you, dear Aunt Milly.  I do not believe he is so frantically wrapped up in this Esclarmonde de Chartres woman after all—­in spite of that diamond chain at Monte Carlo.  For to-night he took us to dine at Armenonville—­although Jack particularly wanted to go to the Madrid—­and when we got there we saw at once why!  There was a most beautiful woman dining there with a party, and Hector never took his eyes off her the whole of dinner, Jack says—­I had my back that way—­and he got rid of us as soon as he could and went and joined them.  Very young she looked, but I suppose married, from her pearls and clothes—­American probably, as she was perhaps too well dressed for one of us; but quite a lady and awfully pretty.  Hector was so snappish about it, and would not tell her name, that it makes me sure he is very much in love with her, and Jack thinks so too.  So, dear Aunt Milly, you need have no more anxieties about him, as she can’t have been married long, she looks so young, and so must be quite safe.  Jack says Hector is thoroughly able to take care of himself, anyway, but I know how all these things worry you.  If I can find out her name before I go I will, though perhaps you think it is out of the frying-pan into the fire, as it makes him no more in the mood to marry Morella Winmarleigh than before.  Unless, of course, this new one is unkind to him.  We shall be home on Saturday, dear Aunt Milly, and I will come round to lunch on Sunday and give you all my news.

     “Your affectionate niece,
                “MONICA ELLERWOOD.”

Which epistle jarred upon Hector’s mother when she read it over coffee at her solitary dinner on the following night.

“Poor dear Monica!” she said to herself.  “I wonder where she got this strain from—­her father’s family, I suppose—­I wish she would not be so—­bald.”

Then she sat down and wrote to her son—­she was not even going to the opera that night.  And if she had looked up in the tall mirror opposite, she would have seen a beautiful, stately lady with a puckered, plaintive frown on her face.