“I wanted to ask whether you would mind if we left the hotel and went to live at another place?”

He heard her with surprise.

“You are not comfortable?”

“Quite.  But I have been to see my friend Mdlle.  Roche—­you remember.  And she has shown me how we can live very comfortably at a quarter of what it costs now, in the same house where she has a room.  I should like to change, if you’ll let me.”

“Pooh!  You’re not to think of the cost——­”

“Whether I am to or not, I do, and can’t help myself.  I know the hotel is fearfully expensive, and I shall like the other place much better.  Miss Roche is a very nice girl, and she was glad to see me; and if I’m near her, I shall get all sorts of advantages—­in French, and so on.”

Hilliard wondered what accounts of herself Eve had rendered to the Parisienne, but he did not venture to ask.

“Will Patty like it as well?”

“Just as well.  Miss Roche speaks English, you know, and they’ll get on very well together.”

“Where is the place?”

“Rather far off—­towards the Jardin des Plantes.  But I don’t think that would matter, would it?”

“I leave it entirely to you.”

“Thank you,” she answered, with that intonation he did not like.  “Of course, if you would like to meet Miss Roche, you can.”

“We’ll think about it.  It’s enough that she’s an old friend of yours.”

CHAPTER XV

When this change had been made Eve seemed to throw off a burden.  She met Hilliard with something like the ease of manner, the frank friendliness, which marked her best moods in their earlier intercourse.  At a restaurant dinner, to which he persuaded her in company with Patty, she was ready in cheerful talk, and an expedition to Versailles, some days after, showed her radiant with the joy of sunshine and movement.  Hilliard could not but wonder at the success of his prescription.

He did not visit the girls in their new abode, and nothing more was said of his making the acquaintance of Mdlle.  Roche.  Meetings were appointed by post-card—­always in Patty’s hand if the initiative were female; they took place three or four times a week.  As it was now necessary for Eve to make payments on her own account, Hilliard despatched to her by post a remittance in paper money, and of this no word passed between them.  Three weeks later he again posted the same sum.  On the morrow they went by river to St. Cloud—­it was always a trio, Hilliard never making any other proposal—­and the steam-boat afforded Eve an opportunity of speaking with her generous friend apart.

“I don’t want this money,” she said, giving him an envelope.  “What you sent before isn’t anything like finished.  There’s enough for a month more.”

“Keep it all the same.  I won’t have any pinching.”

“There’s nothing of the kind.  If I don’t have my way in this I shall go back to London.”