“Well,” said Regnault, his fingers fidgeting on the coverlet, “I can be serious when I like.  I’m serious now, foi de gentilhomme.  Did he say when I should die!”

“Yes,” replied O’Neill.  “He said you’d break like the stem of a pipe at the first strain.”

Regnault’s eyes were half closed.  “Metaphor, eh?” he suggested dreamily.

“He said,” continued O’Neill, “that you were not to move sharply, not to laugh or cry, not to be much amused or surprised—­in fact, you were to keep absolutely quiet.  He suggested, too, that you’d had your share of emotions, and would be better without them now.”

Regnault smiled again.  “Wonderful,” he said softly.  “They teach them all that in the hospitals.  Then, in effect, I hold this appointment during good Conduct?”

“That’s the idea,” said O’Neill gravely.

There was a long pause; Regnault seemed to be thinking deeply.  The amyl had brought color back to his face; except for the disorder of his long white hair he seemed to be his normal self.

“It will not be amusing,” he said at length.  “For you, I mean.”

“Oh, I shall be all right,” answered O’Neill, but the same thought had occurred to him.

“No, it will not be amusing to you,” repeated Regnault.  “For this good Buscarlet it is another thing.  I shall keep him busy.  You like that, don’it you, Emile?”

Poor Buscarlet choked and gurgled.  Regnault laughed softly.

“Take the lamp, Emile,” he said, “and carry it to ‘The Dancer.’  I want to see it.”

Buscarlet was eager to do his bidding.  O’Neill frowned as he picked up the lamp.

“Careful,” he said, in a low voice to Regnault.

“Oh,” said Regnault, “this is not an emotion.”  He laughed again.

Across the room Buscarlet lifted the shade from the lamp and held it up.  Again there came into view the white and scarlet of the picture, the high light on the bare shoulder, the warm tint of the naked arm, the cheap diablerie of the posture, the splendid rebellion of the face.  Regnault turned and stared at it under drawn brows.

“Thank you, Emile,” he said at last, and lay back on his pillow.  For an instant of forgetfulness his delicate face was ingenuous and expressive; he caught himself back to control as he met O’Neill’s eyes.

“Il est un age dans la vie Ou chaque reve doit finir, Un age ou l’ame recueillie A besoin de se souvenir,”

he quoted softly.  Buscarlet was fitting the shade on the lamp again.

“I think,” Regnault went on, “that I have come to that, after all.  He told you, eh?  Buscarlet told you that she—­Lola—­is my wife?”

“Yes,” answered O’Neill.  “Would you like me to send for her?”

“She would not come for that,” said Regnault.  He was studying the young man’s face with bright eyes.  “Ah,” he sighed; “you don’t know these things.  We parted—­of course; but not in weariness, not in the grey staleness of fatigue and boredom.  No; but in a splendid wreck of wrath and jealousy and hatred.  We did not run aground tamely; we split in vehemence on the very rock of discord.  She would not come for a letter.”