Max’s shrewd eyes took another quick look at him.  “For Chris’s benefit, I suppose?” he said, and though his tone was a question, it scarcely sounded as if he expected an answer.

Bertrand’s eyes met his for an instant in a single lightning glance of interrogation.  They fell again immediately, and there followed a considerable pause before he made reply:  “I do not abandon my friends when they are troubled and they have need of me.”

“Does Chris need you?” Max asked ruthlessly.

Again that swift glance shooting upwards; again a lengthy pause.  Then, “Vous avez la vue percante,” Bertrand remarked in a low tone.

“I can’t help seeing things,” Max returned.  “I suppose it’s my speciality.  I knew you were in love with her from the first moment I saw you.”

Bertrand made a slight movement, as if the crude statement hurt him; but he answered quite quietly, “You have divined a secret which is known to none other.  I confide it to your honourable keeping.”

The corners of Max’s mouth went down.  He looked as if he were on the verge of making some ironical rejoinder, but he restrained it, merely asking, “Are you sure that no one else knows it?”

“You mean—?” The words came sharply this time; Bertrand’s eyes searched his face with keen anxiety.

“Chris herself,” Max said.

“La petite Christine!  Ma foi, no!  She has never known!” Bertrand’s reply was instant and held unshaken conviction.

“You seem very sure of that,” Max observed.

“I am sure.  Also”—­a queer little smile of tenderness touched Bertrand’s drawn face—­“she never will know now.”

“Meaning you will never tell her?” Max said.

“Me, I will die first!” Bertrand answered simply.

Max grunted.  “Women have an awkward knack of finding things out without being told,” he observed.

“She will never discover this while I live,” Bertrand answered.  “I am her friend—­the friend of her childhood—­nothing more than that.”

“But if she did find out?” Max said.

“She will not.”

“But—­suppose it for a moment—­if she did?” He stuck to his point doggedly, plainly determined to get an answer.

“In that case I should depart at once,” Bertrand answered.

“Yes, and where would you go to?”

Bertrand was silent.

“You would go back to London and starve?” Max persisted.

“Perhaps.”  Bertrand spoke as though the matter were one of indifference to him.  “It would not be for long,” he said rather dreamily.

“Oh, rot!” Max’s rejoinder was intentionally vehement.  “Look here,” he said, as Bertrand looked at him in surprise, “you can’t go on like that.  It’s too damned foolish.  If, for any reason, you do leave this place, you must have some plan of action.  You can’t let yourself drift.”

“No?” Bertrand still looked surprised.