He put the envelope in his pocket, and stood silent, with eyes fixed on the river bank.

“How long do you intend us to stay?” asked Eve.

“As long as you find pleasure here.”

“And—­what am I to do afterwards?”

He glanced at her.

“A holiday must come to an end,” she added, trying, but without success, to meet his look.

“I haven’t given any thought to that,” said Hilliard, carelessly; “there’s plenty of time.  It will be fine weather for many weeks yet.”

“But I have been thinking about it.  I should be crazy if I didn’t.”

“Tell me your thoughts, then.”

“Should you be satisfied if I got a place at Birmingham?”

There again Was the note of self-abasement.  It irritated the listener.

“Why do you put it in that way?  There’s no question of what satisfies me, but of what is good for you.”

“Then I think it had better be Birmingham.”

“Very well.  It’s understood that when we leave Paris we go there.”

A silence.  Then Eve asked abruptly: 

“You will go as well?”

“Yes, I shall go back.”

“And what becomes of your determination to enjoy life as long as you can?”

“I’m carrying it out.  I shall go back satisfied, at all events.”

“And return to your old work?”

“I don’t know.  It depends on all sorts of things.  We won’t talk of it just yet.”

Patty approached, and Hilliard turned to her with a bright, jesting face.

Midway in August, on his return home one afternoon, the concierge let him know that two English gentlemen had been inquiring for him; one of them had left a card.  With surprise and pleasure Hilliard read the name of Robert Narramore, and beneath it, written in pencil, an invitation to dine that evening at a certain hotel in the Rue de Provence.  As usual, Narramore had neglected the duties of a correspondent; this was the first announcement of his intention to be in Paris.  Who the second man might be Hilliard could not conjecture.

He arrived at the hotel, and found Narramore in company with a man of about the same age, his name Birching, to Hilliard a stranger.  They had reached Paris this morning, and would remain only for a day or two, as their purpose was towards the Alps.

“I couldn’t stand this heat,” remarked Narramore, who, in the very lightest of tourist garbs, sprawled upon a divan, and drank something iced out of a tall tumbler.  “We shouldn’t have stopped here at all if it hadn’t been for you.  The idea is that you should go on with us.”

“Can’t—­impossible——­”

“Why, what are you doing here—­besides roasting?”

“Eating and drinking just what suits my digestion.”

“You look pretty fit—­a jolly sight better than when we met last.  All the same, you will go on with us.  We won’t argue it now; it’s dinner-time.  Wait till afterwards.”