Lola stood before me wringing her hands.

“What are you going to do?”

“I can get an introduction to the Chef de bureau of the information department of the Ministere de la Guerre in Paris,” I replied after a moment’s reflection.  “He will be able to tell me whether Captain Vauvenarde is alive or dead.”

“He is alive.  He must be.”

“Very well.  But I doubt whether Captain Vauvenarde keeps the office informed of his movements.”

“But you’ll go in search of him, won’t you?”

“The earth is rather a large place,” I objected.  “He may be in Dieppe, or he may be on top of Mount Popocatapetl.”

“I’m sure you’ll find him,” she said encouragingly.

“You’ll own,” said I, “that there’s something humourous in the idea of my wandering all over the surface of the planet in search of a lost captain of Chasseurs.  It is true that we might employ a private detective.”

“Yes!” she cried eagerly.  “Why not?  Then you could stay here—­and I could go on seeing you till the news came.  Let us do that.”

The swiftness of her change of mood surprised me.

“What is the particular object of your going on seeing me?” I asked, with a smile.

She turned away and shrugged her shoulders and took up her pensive attitude by the fire.

“I have no other friend,” she said.

“There’s Dale.”

“He’s not the same.”

“There’s Sir Joshua Oldfield.”

She shrugged her shoulders.

I lit a cigarette and sat down.  There was a long silence.  In some unaccountable way she had me under her spell again.  I felt a perfectly insane dismay at the prospect of ending this queer intimacy, and I viewed her intrigue with Dale with profound distaste.  Lola had become a habit.  The chair I was sitting in was my chair.  Adolphus was my dog.  I hated the idea of Dale making him stand up and do sentry with the fire shovel, while Lola sprawled gracefully on the hearthrug.  On the other hand the thought of remaining in London and sharing with my young friend the privilege of her society was intolerable.

I smoked, and, watching her bosom rise and fall as she leaned forward with one arm on the mantelpiece, argued it out with myself, and came to the paradoxical conclusion that I could pack her off without a pang to Kamtchatka and the embraces of her unknown husband, but could not hand her over to Dale without feelings of the deepest repugnance.  A pretty position to find myself in.  I threw away my cigarette impatiently.

Presently she said, not stirring from her pose: 

“I shall miss you terribly if you go.  A man like you doesn’t come into the life of a common woman like me without”—­she hesitated for a word—­“without making some impression.  I can’t bear to lose you.”

“I shall be very sorry to give up our pleasant comradeship,” said I, “but even if I stay and send the private inquiry agent instead of going myself, I shan’t be able to go on seeing you in this way.”