“You forget,” said I, “that it is the arrival platform of Carlotta.”

He threw back his head and laughed boyishly.

“Well, consider it the Golden Gate terminus of the ’Earth, Hades and Olympus Railway’ if you like.  I’m off on a branch line to meet a beauteous duchessa at Ealing—­oh, an authentic one, I assure you.”

“Why should I doubt it?” said I.

Stenson, whom I had brought to look after Carlotta’s luggage, came up and touched his hat.

“Train just signalled, sir.”

Pasquale put out his hand after another glance at his watch.

“I am sorry I cannot wait to greet the fair one.  I’ll drop in soon and pay my respects.  I am only just back in London, you know. A rivederci.”

He waved me farewell and hurried off.  The arrival of the train, the exuberance of Carlotta, the joy of having her sidle up against me once more in the cab while she poured out her story, and the subsequent gaiety of the evening banished Pasquale from my mind.  But it is odd that I should have met him at Paddington.

We parted on the landing to dress for dinner.  A moment afterwards there was a beating at my door.  I opened it to behold Carlotta, in a glow of wondering delight, brandishing a silver-backed brush in one hand and the hand-mirror in the other.

“Oh, my darling Seer Marcous!  For me?  All that for me?”

“No.  It is for Antoinette,” said I.

“Oh-h!”

She laughed and pulled me by the arm into her room and shut the door.

“Oh, everything is beautiful, beautiful, and I shall die if I do not kiss you.”

“You must be kept alive at all hazards,” I laughed; and this time I did not reject her.  But it was a child around whom my arms closed.  An inner flash, accompanied by a spasm of pain, revealed it, and changed a passionate desire to gentleness.

“There,” said I, after she had released herself and flown to open the drawers of the new toilette table, where lay some odds and ends of jewelry I had purchased for her.  “You have been saved from extinction.  The next deadly peril is hunger.  I give you a quarter of an hour.”

She came down to dinner in a low-necked frock, wearing the necklace and bangle; and, child that she is, in her hand she carried the silver-backed mirror.  I believe she has taken it to bed with her, as a seven-year-old does its toy.  She certainly kept it by her all the evening and admired herself therein unashamedly like the traditional Lady from the Sea.  Once, desiring to show me the ravishing beauty of a turquoise pendant, she bent her neck forward, as I sat, so as to come within reach of my nearsighted eyes (it is a superstition of hers that I am nearly blind without my glasses), and quite naturally slid onto my knee.  She has the warm russet complexion that suits her heavy bronze hair, and there is a glow beneath the satin of her neck and arms.  And she is fragrant—­I recognise it now—­of hyacinths.  The world can hold nothing more alluring to the senses of man.  My fingers that held the turquoise trembled as they chanced to touch her—­but she was all unconcerned.  Nay, further—­she gazed into the mirror—­