“Yet never once dined at a restaurant,” remarked Hilliard, laughing.  “There’s the difference between man and woman.”

“My ideas of extravagance were very modest, after all.”

Hilliard, fingering his coffee-cup, said in a lower voice: 

“Yet you haven’t told me everything.”

Eve looked away, and kept silence.

“By the time I met you”—­he spoke in his ordinary tone—­“you had begun to grow tired of it.”

“Yes—­and——­” She rose.  “We won’t sit here any longer.”

When they had walked for a few minutes: 

“How long shall you stay in Paris?” she asked.

“Won’t you let me travel with you?”

“I do whatever you wish,” Eve answered simply.

CHAPTER XVII

Her accent of submission did not affect Hilliard as formerly; with a nervous thrill, he felt that she spoke as her heart dictated.  In his absence Eve had come to regard him, if not with the feeling he desired, with something that resembled it; he read the change in her eyes.  As they walked slowly away she kept nearer to him than of wont; now and then her arm touched his, and the contact gave him a delicious sensation.  Askance he observed her figure, its graceful, rather languid, movement; to-night she had a new power over him, and excited with a passion which made his earlier desires seem spiritless.

“One day more of Paris?” he asked softly.

“Wouldn’t it be better——?” she hesitated in the objection.

“Do you wish to break the journey in London?”

“No; let us go straight on.”

“To-morrow, then?”

“I don’t think we ought to put it off.  The holiday is over.”

Hilliard nodded with satisfaction.  An incident of the street occupied them for a few minutes, and their serious conversation was only resumed when they had crossed to the south side of the river, where they turned eastwards and went along the quays.

“Till I can find something to do,” Eve said at length, “I shall live at Dudley.  Father will be very glad to have me there.  He wished me to stay longer.”

“I am wondering whether it is really necessary for you to go back to your drudgery.”

“Oh, of course it is,” she answered quickly.  “I mustn’t be idle.  That’s the very worst thing for me.  And how am I to live?”

“I have still plenty of money,” said Hilliard, regarding her.

“No more than you will need.”

“But think—­how little more it costs for two than for one——­”

He spoke in spite of himself, having purposed no such suggestion.  Eve quickened her step.

“No, no, no!  You have a struggle before you; you don’t know what ——­”

“And if it would make it easier for me?—­there’s no real doubt about my getting on well enough——­”

“Everything is doubtful.”  She spoke in a voice of agitation.  “We can’t see a day before us.  We have arranged everything very well ——­”