She was so silent he began to wonder if he had shocked her, though that didn't seem likely, she was such a sensible girl.

"Of course she can't help having that sort of hand," he hastened to add apologetically. "It's just a peculiarity."

Esther was repeating to herself that phrase, "the hands of the successful cocotte," which somehow seemed oddly illuminating. Lady Clifford's hands had a meaning for her now. The soft cushioned palms spelled love of luxury, the stumpy, curving fingers and talon-like nails indicated acquisitive greed. She could see them grasping, grasping…

"Ah, here are the cocktails."

She came to herself with a smile, and took the frosty glass which he held out to her.

"May we both get what we want!"

She touched her glass to his gaily and drank. Then with a flash of reminiscence she glanced across at Holliday, recalling the fact that a few weeks ago he had uttered exactly the same toast. What was it Holliday wanted? She had thought at the time it was something quite definite….

The meal proceeded happily, they laughed and chatted with a sense of exhilaration derived only in part from the champagne. Although they told each other many things, as on a former occasion, it was not what they said that mattered. Each was intensely absorbed in the other's personality; what counted was mutual attraction, which invested every commonplace with vibrant inner meanings. They forgot the life about them; it was as though they were marooned upon a tiny island in the midst of uncharted seas.

"Do you feel like dancing?"

The coffee, sending up a fragrant steam, was too hot to drink; the saxophones sounded an insinuating invitation.

"Do let's—I'm dying to!"

As they mingled with the circling couples on the glassy floor, Roger gave her hand a faint pressure.

"I said you were," he told her.

"Said I was what?"

"A wonderful dancer. The first time I saw you."

"No—did you?" she replied delightedly and returned the pressure spontaneously. "I'm glad. I'd far rather you praised my dancing than my character."

"I don't know anything about your character," he disclaimed, laughing.

He was enjoying himself immensely. Of all the girls he knew, it struck him that not one would have fitted in so perfectly with his mood as did this little Canadian girl who worked hard for her living. Why was it? He had nothing to say against his own friends, jolly girls for the most part, excellent at games and only a little spoilt by having always had money—yet certainly they lacked the freshness which was so large a part of this particular girl's attraction for him. She was capable and intelligent, too, without sacrificing one whit of her femininity—he was a simple enough male to remark on this; for that matter, he reflected with pride, there was not a woman in the room who was smarter. She had a poise and grace of movement that were a delight to the eye, and she was soignÉe to the finger-tips. A thoroughbred, he summed her up, and felt pleased with his judgment.

When presently they were joined by his friends, Graham and Marjory
Kent, he was not particularly elated.

"I hope you don't curse us for barging in like this," Miss Kent apologised, "but my brother is fed to the teeth with me and is going to try and cadge a dance or two off you, Miss Rowe, if you'll be good to him."

She was about twenty-six, tall and gypsy-like, her black hair in a bang and her thin brown arms jingling with bangles. Esther liked her, she was straightforward and jolly. The brother was younger and very shy, yet plainly one of those timid souls whose tenacity of purpose will carry them through agonies of embarrassment to a desired end. The end in this case was evidently Esther. His black eyes shone with frank admiration, even while he blushed a dusky red to the roots of his immaculate hair.

"May I have this dance?" he murmured almost at once.

She smiled and rose to join him. At the same moment she caught a certain glint in the eye of Roger which told her plainly how her value had risen by reason of competition. In so many ways was he a mere male—but she did not like him the less for that.

Roger, dancing with Marjory, whom he had known all his life, watched the slender figure in fluttering pink whenever it crossed his line of vision. The curly head had an upward tilt at times, for Graham was over six feet tall, and she had to look up to speak to him.

"You know, Roger, Graham's fearfully taken with that girl of yours," Marjory told him calmly. "He gave me no peace until I brought him over. Who is she? You don't mean it? A nurse! Well, who'd have thought anyone so useful could look like that? I call it genius."

"Nurses needn't be frights," he objected.

"But most of them are…. By the way, I saw Lady Clifford here last night, marvellous as usual. She was with a rather nice-looking Englishman I've seen about Cannes a good deal—no one I know."

"Yes, he is here this evening, or was. I saw him having dinner."

"So did I, with a comic-looking foreign woman, simply lousy with jewels. She's always about here. I used to wonder who in the world had money enough to buy those enormous diamonds and ropes of pearls you see in the shops in the Rue de la Paix. Now I know."

The dance went on and on; for the first time he noticed how frequently the orchestra responded to an encore.

"Do look at Graham," whispered his partner delightedly. "Isn't it amazing when you think how timid he is?"

The tall youth was not losing any time. In a brief interval Roger overheard him saying something very earnest to his partner on the subject of Saturday afternoon, evidently making a desperate bid for Esther's free hour. She in turn was shaking her head doubtfully, but, thought Roger, she did not look displeased. The idea came to Roger that young Kent, who was sole heir to one of the biggest mill-owners in Lancashire, would be counted a fine prize…. He looked at his watch.

"That little girl has to get up early," he murmured to Marjory. "I promised faithfully not to keep her out late. If this goes on much longer…"

It was a little after one o'clock when he tucked Esther into the CitroËn. He drove slowly towards La Californie, reluctant to put an end to the evening, and intensely conscious of the girl beside him, wrapped in her velvet coat, warm and glowing in the darkness.

"I'm sure we ought to have left sooner," she said, a little conscience-stricken, "only it was so heavenly! I had the bad luck to oversleep this morning; it would be dreadful to repeat the offence."

"Why should you care?"

"How like a man! Don't you grasp the fact that my living depends on what doctors think of me?"

"In that case, you'll never be out of work."

She laughed.

"No, seriously, I was in the doctor's bad graces this morning. Not only was I late, but I dropped a basin of water on the floor. Wasn't it stupid? He looked at me as if he thought I was weak-minded."

"Pooh! I shouldn't let that worry me."

"I don't, only … do you know, that man has a curious effect on me, something sort of paralysing…. I can't explain it, quite."

"Does he? How do you mean?"

She told him, on an impulse, about her dream and her subsequent recognition of the python as a symbol of the doctor's personality.

"It sounds silly, but it was really quite horrible," she ended with a little laugh. "To feel I was in the creature's power, and that it didn't care, it had no feeling—I was simply something to be crushed, annihilated."

"He is a cold-blooded sort of person," said Roger thoughtfully. "Not that it matters much, if, as my aunt says, he is so good at his job. Only, of course, it is pretty apt to prevent his becoming exactly popular."

"That wouldn't worry him. He only wants to be able to live in order to carry on research."

When the car turned in at the drive Roger fancied he saw a thread of light from one of the drawing-room windows. The next instant it was gone, and he decided he had been mistaken; it must have been a trick of the moonlight. The house loomed dark before them. He garaged the car, and escorting Esther upstairs, parted from her at the end of the short passage leading to her room.

"Thanks for a gorgeous time," she whispered, careful not to make a noise.

He thought how lovely she was as she looked up at him, her lashes curving back from her lambent eyes, the soft curls of her hair ruffling back from her warm forehead.

"If you've really liked it," he said, detaining her hand a little longer than was necessary, "you'll come with me again?"

She smiled and was gone, the brief adieu leaving each of them to wonder how much more was meant than the polite commonplaces uttered.

Roger leaned out of his own window for ten minutes smoking, his mind full of a pleasant excitement. Disturbing, too, for with the unaccustomed feeling that perhaps at last he had found a girl he was willing to let himself fall in love with came a doubt, a cautious warning to hesitate, not to go too fast. She was delightful, he firmly believed her to be transparent and sincere, but men have been taken in only too easily when their senses have been stirred as his had been to-night. No, he must not rush things; he must wait a little and be sure, not so much of himself as of her; he must be convinced that she cared for him, that she was not merely dazzled by what he could give her one day…. That was the drawback of having money, if only in prospect. Already, for some years in fact, he had been pursued by mercenary maidens and their mothers. He had a rooted aversion to the whole breed, and a latent fear that one day he would be taken in after all. He knew himself to be impressionable and impulsive; still, behind these dangerous qualities lay a certain hard, deliberate common sense that had saved him in more than one perilous situation. Sternly he informed himself that he had known Esther Rowe about three days. In short, he must not be a fool.

Something, the champagne perhaps, had made him very thirsty. Finding his bottle of Evian water almost empty, he decided to explore the kitchen region below to secure another. He knew where the mineral waters were kept—in a small cupboard next to the wine-cellar. He sallied forth and descended the back stairs very quietly, in order not to disturb anyone. After poking about for a few moments he found what he wanted. There was nothing to open it with, however. Where was the thing kept? Ah, of course, in the sideboard, he remembered.

The swing-door into the dining-room made no noise; he discovered the little implement in the drawer with the table-knives and, wrenching off the metal cap from the bottle, turned to go back the way he had come. All at once he stopped stock-still and listened. Then he glanced towards the door that led into the drawing-room. Had he heard whispered voices?

For thirty seconds he remained rooted to the spot, his ears strained to catch a repetition of the fancied sound. It had been only a faint murmur; he might have been mistaken … yes, there it was again, a sort of choked, sibilant whisper coming from the adjoining room. Hardly had he made sure of it when there fell on his ears a small crash, sharp, as of some object dropped on the parquet. It was followed by a smothered exclamation in a man's voice, brief and profane.

With but one idea in his mind—burglars—he crossed to the drawing-room door and flung it wide. That he was unarmed did not enter his thoughts.

The drawing-room was in utter darkness. He reached for the nearby switch and flooded the room in a blaze of light.