“It has always been a pleasure to me,” said I very frigidly, “to place my services at the disposal of Madame Brandt.”

“Vauvenarde, Monsieur,” he corrected with a smile.

“And is Madame Vauvenarde equally satisfied with the—­reconciliation?” I asked.

“I think Monsieur Vauvenarde is somewhat premature,” said Lola, with a trembling lip.  “There were conditions—­”

“A mere question of protocol.”  He waved an airy hand.

“I don’t know what that is,” said Lola.  “There are conditions I must fix, and I thought the advice of my friend, Monsieur de Gex—­”

“Precisely, my dear Lola,” he interrupted.  “The principle is affirmed.  We are reconciled.  I proceed logically.  The first thing I do is to thank Monsieur de Gex—­you have a French name, Monsieur, and you pronounce it English fashion, which is somewhat embarrassing—­But no matter.  The next thing is the protocol.  We have no possibility of calling a family council, and therefore, I acceded with pleasure to the intervention of Monsieur.  It is kind of him to burden himself with our unimportant affairs.”

The irony of his tone belied the suave correctitude of his words.  I detested him more and more.  More and more did I realise that the dying eumoirist is capable of petty human passions.  My vanity was being sacrified.  Here was a woman passionately in love with me proposing to throw herself into another man’s arms—­it made not a scrap of difference, in the circumstances, that the man was her husband—­and into the arms of such a man!  Having known me to decline—­etcetera, etcetera!  How could she face it?  And why was she doing it?  To save herself from me, or me from herself?  She knew perfectly well that the little pain inside would precious soon settle that question.  Why was she doing it?  I should have thought that the first glance at the puffy reprobate would have been enough to show her the folly of her idea.  However, it was comforting to learn that she had not surrendered at once.

“If I am to have the privilege, Monsieur,” said I, “of acting as a family council, perhaps you may forgive my hinting at some of the conditions that doubtless are in Madame’s mind.”

“Proceed, Monsieur,” said he.

“I want to know where I am,” said Lola in English.  “He took everything for granted from the first.”

“Are you willing to go back to him?” I asked also in English.

She met my gaze steadily, and I saw a woman’s needless pain at the back of her eyes.  She moistened her lips with her tongue, and said: 

“Under conditions.”

“Monsieur,” said I in French, turning to Vauvenarde, “forgive us for speaking our language.”

“Perfectly,” said he, and he smiled meaningly and banteringly at us both.

“In the first place, Monsieur, you are aware that Madame has a little fortune, which does not detract from the charm you have always found in her.  It was left her by her father, who, as you know, tamed lions and directed a menagerie.  I would propose that Madame appointed trustees to administer this little fortune.”