Patty was in ecstasies with everything, and chattered on breathlessly.  She wished to go out; Eve had no need of her—­indeed had told her that above all she wished to be left alone.

“Get ready, then,” said Hilliard, “and we’ll have an hour or two.”

They walked to the Madeleine and rode thence on the top of a tram-car to the Bastille.  By this time Patty had come to regard her strange companion in a sort of brotherly light; no restraint whatever appeared in her conversation with him.  Eve, she told him, had talked French with the chambermaid.

“And I fancy it was something she didn’t want me to understand.”

“Why should you think so?”

“Oh, something in the way the girl looked at me.”

“No, no; you were mistaken.  She only wanted to show that she knew some French.”

But Hilliard wondered whether Patty could be right.  Was it not possible that Eve had gratified her vanity by representing her friend as a servant—­a lady’s-maid?  Yet why should he attribute such a fault to her?  It was an odd thing that he constantly regarded Eve in the least favourable light, giving weight to all the ill he conjectured in her, and minimising those features of her character which, at the beginning, he had been prepared to observe with sympathy and admiration.  For a man in love his reflections followed a very unwonted course.  And, indeed, he had never regarded his love as of very high or pure quality; it was something that possessed him and constrained him—­by no means a source of elevating emotion.

“Do you like Eve?” he asked abruptly, disregarding some trivial question Patty had put to him.

“Like her?  Of course I do.”

“And why do you like her?”

“Why?—­ah—­I don’t know.  Because I do.”

And she laughed foolishly.

“Does Eve like you?” Hilliard continued.

“I think she does.  Else I don’t see why she kept up with me.”

“Has she ever done you any kindness?”

“I’m sure I don’t know.  Nothing particular.  She never gave anything, if you mean that.  But she has paid for me at theatres and so on.”

Hilliard quitted the subject.

“If you like to go out alone,” he told her before they parted, “there’s no reason why you shouldn’t—­just as you do in London.  Remember the way back, that’s all, and don’t be out late.  And you’ll want some French money.”

“But I don’t understand it, and how can I buy anything when I can’t speak a word?”

“All the same, take that and keep it till you are able to make use of it.  It’s what I promised you.”

Patty drew back her hand, but her objections were not difficult to overcome.

“I dare say,” Hilliard continued, “Eve doesn’t understand the money much better than you do.  But she’ll soon be well enough to talk, and then I shall explain everything to her.  On this piece of paper is my address; please let Eve have it.  I shall call to-morrow morning again.”