We made a semicircle through the secret shames that beautiful Paris would fain hide, and, emerging, found ourselves in the deserted and stony magnificence of the Gare de Lyon, the gate of the South.  Here, where we were not out of keeping, where our splendour was of a piece with the splendour of the proudest terminus in France, we rested long, fretted by the inexplicable leisureliness on the part of a train de grand luxe, while gilded officials paced to and fro beneath us on the platforms, guarding in their bureaucratic breasts the secret of the exact instant at which the great express would leave.  I slept, and dreamed that the Misses Vicary had brought several pairs of white gloves in order to have me dismissed from the society of the train.  A hand touched me.  It was Yvonne’s.  I awoke to a renewal of the maddening vibration.  We had quitted Paris long since.  It was after seven o’clock. ’On dit que le diner est servi, madame said Yvonne.  I told her to go, and I collected my wits to follow her.  As I was emerging into the corridor, Miss Kate went by.  I smiled faintly, perhaps timidly.  She cut me completely.  Then I went out into the corridor.  A man was standing at the other end twirling his moustaches.  He turned round.

It was Frank.

He came towards me, uncertainly swaying with the movement of the swaying train.

‘Good God!’ he muttered, and stopped within a yard of me.

I clung convulsively to the framework of the doorway.  Our lives paused.

‘Why have you followed me, Frank?’ I asked gloomily, in a whisper.

I had meant to be severe, offended.  I had not meant to put his name at the end of my question, much less to utter it tenderly, like an endearment.  But I had little control over myself.  I was almost breathless with a fatal surprise, shaken with terrible emotion.

‘I’ve not followed you,’ he said.  ’I joined the train at Paris.  I’d no idea you were on the train till I saw you in the corner asleep, through the window of the compartment.  I’ve been waiting here till you came out.’

‘Have you seen the Vicarys?’

‘Yes,’ he answered.

‘Ah!  You’ve been away from London all this time?’

’I couldn’t stay.  I couldn’t.  I’ve been in Belgium and Holland.  Then I went to Paris.  And now—­you see me.’

‘I’m going to Mentone,’ I said.  ’I had thought of Monte Carlo first, but I changed my mind.  Where are you going to?’

‘Mentone,’ he said.

We talked in hard, strained tones, avoiding each other’s eyes.  A string of people passed along the car on their way to dinner.  I withdrew into my compartment, and Frank flattened himself against a window.

‘Come in here a minute,’ I said, when they were gone.

He entered the compartment and sat down opposite to me and lifted his hand, perhaps unconsciously, to pull the door to.

‘No,’ I said; ‘don’t shut it.  Leave it like that.’