Why Minna sent the note of acquiescence she herself could not tell. Her caprices were past accounting for. Vanity had its share. The man whom she had regarded as the most contemptuous and remote of a priggish society was now at her feet. Revenge prompted her to pay her ancient grudge against that society by kicking him as he grovelled. Again, desperate satiety drove her to new sensations. And lastly, a reaction from her expansiveness of the night before set her obstinately counter to Mrs. Delamere’s somewhat injudicious advice to remain within doors.

She kept him waiting in the loggia for half an hour, while the ponies stamped and rattled their bits below. At last she appeared, dressed in her flaring daffodil-yellow costume, which she had not worn since her original encounter with him. She met him somewhat defiantly, without apology for her delay.

“Do I look decent?” she enquired nonchalantly of Mrs. Delamere, who had been keeping Gerard company.

“You look ripping,” said Gerard.

She signed to him that she was ready to start. He picked up his hat and gloves from the balustrade and followed her downstairs, helped her into the high phaeton, took the reins from the man at the horses’ heads, and turned out of the front gate. Then a cut of the whip sent the ponies at a dashing pace down the Cimiez Road, through the town, towards the sea.

“We will go Antibes way, along the coast,” said Gerard.

“Anywhere except the Corniche road,” replied Minna. “I am sick of it.”

“You seem to be sick of most things. Why so? You’ve got money and beauty and independence. What more can you want?”

“Suppose I said I wanted somebody to understand me—some one whom I could meet soul to soul?” she said sarcastically. “Don’t you ever feel that?”

He laughed, as he piloted the ponies past a company of bicyclists, at whose machines they seemed disposed to shy.

“I’ve heard too much of that jargon,” he answered. “I’ve been cured of a belief in souls.”

“Or if they do exist,” said Minna, “people only talk of them as they do of their livers—when they are diseased.”

“You began talking of yours. Is it out of order? You try it a bit, don’t you?”

Hardened as Minna was, and readily as she would have laughed at the speech coming from the lips of another man, yet in the remorseful bitterness of her heart, which this sudden association with him seemed to have swelled to sensitive tenseness, she felt his words jar through her body.

“One’s own self-mockery is enough,” she replied, coldly.

“Oh, come,” he cried with a laugh, “we are not going to turn ourselves inside out, as if we were at a London afternoon tea and anatomy crush. It’s rough on the ponies. You haven’t even admired them.”

As they turned on to the smooth white road between the Public Gardens and the sea, and dashed down the long Promenade des Anglais, with great clatter of hoofs and tossing of impatient heads, Gerard felt the man’s pride in association with respectable horseflesh. He was in luck. Such a turn-out is not to be met with in every Riviera livery stable. And the elemental pride in temporary possession of female beauty added to his satisfaction. Yet the fact that he was driving the notorious Queen of Sheba, before the eyes of all Nice, brought a satirical smile to his lips.

“There would be a nice little scandal about, if either of us were attached,” he said. “It is comfortable not to have to bother about the proprieties.”

“I consider this Bayswatery in its conventionality,” replied Minna. “If you look upon this as an adventure, I wonder what you’d think of anything really audacious.”

“I am ready to commit any audacity. Name one.”

She leaned back and twirled her parasol languishly. To see her face he had to turn his head.

“I will kiss you now if you like, coram publico. You’re bewitching enough,” he said in his rough fashion.

“The idea is unimaginative and—repulsive,” replied Minna. And she began to look idly at the sea.

It was at its loveliest that afternoon, melting through all gradations from cobalt to pale turquoise, flecked with the rich tones of the brown Mediterranean sails, and meeting far ahead in a sapphire haze the dreamy stretch of the Cap d’Antibes. But Minna’s thoughts were far from its intoxicating beauty. She wished she had not come for this drive. This man was getting upon her nerves. She had half intended to lash him with ridicule and set him adrift. But she lacked courage. In his last admiring glance she had read that which made her fear. Her nervousness began to grow hysterical, especially after the lapse of some minutes during which he had not spoken.

“Do say something,” she said at last, irritably.

“I thought you were absorbed in the poetry of nature,” he replied.

“You Englishmen are so heavy. You were scandalised at meeting a crowd of shady foreigners at my house last night. They can talk amusingly. That’s why.”

“An Englishman generally acts, which is better,” said Gerard.

They pursued the theme for a while; then, piqued by her disadvantageous comparison, he began to make love outright. As he proceeded, her sense of loathing and of impotence increased. She scarcely spoke. Gerard took her silence for assumption of modesty; the satirical smile deepened about his lips.

The ponies went down the white road at a spanking pace. They had reached the open country and traffic was scanty. The road undulated between banks pungent with thyme and rosemary; now rose in full view of the sea and the great sweep of coast, now skirted villas nestling in the slopes that heave downwards to the shore from the cool grey Maritime Alps, shimmering against the violet sky. Swarthy, barelegged children ran out from the wayside cottages to stare at the wheels flashing amidst the cloud of dust, and now and then a great shovel-hatted curÉ looked up from his greasy breviary as the English couple dashed by. Suddenly at the top of a steep incline a bicyclist whirred past them, and coasted swiftly down. The ponies shied, plunged. The phaeton was not fitted with a brake. Gerard, deep in amorous schemes and taken off his guard, slashed the ponies, tried to pull them up, bungled, with the result that they bolted furiously down the hill.

Minna, physically timid, shrieked and fastened a desperate clasp on Gerard’s arm.

“All right! Hold on tight. Not my arm. Nothing will happen,” he said reassuringly. The cyclist, hearing the frightened horses thundering behind him, set his feet on the pedals, put on the brake, and drifted into the hedge. The light carriage leapt and swung. Minna was terrified. In her fright she had left her parasol to the winds, and clung to Gerard’s body with both hands. She was very near him; for a second he took his eyes from the tossing manes and kissed her on her open mouth. She uttered a little cry and turned aside her head. But excitement had warmed his blood. He kissed her again; she could not get beyond his reach; dared not relax her grasp for fear of instant death. He had her at his mercy. As soon as he became aware of regained control of the animals, he let them follow, for a time, their foolish course, and kissed the frenzied girl beside him over and over again, heedless of her struggles and cries.

At last came a slight ascent and Gerard’s powerful arms brought the ponies to their senses. They broke into a moderate pace, and, all danger being over, Minna relaxed her hold and drew as far from Gerard as she could.

“You brute!” she cried tempestuously. “You brute! You cowardly brute!”

With a mighty wrench he pulled up the ponies at the top of the rise, and they stood trembling, spattering their chests with foam. He turned to reply to Minna, but she rose suddenly and, before he could interfere, was clambering out of the high phaeton.

“I shall not stay a moment longer with you. I shall walk back, if I die from it.”

She missed the step, and fell heavily to the ground. A peasant in a blue blouse, who was working in a little patch of garden by the side of the road, ran up and assisted her to rise. Then hailed by Gerard, he went to the horses’ heads, and Gerard sprang to Minna’s assistance.

“You haven’t hurt yourself?”

“I have twisted my foot,” she said sullenly, steadying herself by the phaeton. She was pale with anger and pain. Her veil and hat were awry, one of her gloves had split. The daffodil-yellow costume was white with dust. The consciousness of her aspect incensed her further.

“You’re in a great mess,” he said. And clumsily he began to brush the dust from her skirt. But she twitched it away from him with her free hand.

“Don’t touch me,” she said angrily. He stood up, thrust his hands in his pockets, and looked at her somewhat satirically.

“I am awfully sorry. But I’ll have to do something for you, if you have twisted your foot. You can’t remain there all the afternoon.”

“It’s better,” she declared. “Leave me—go away—I can walk home.”

With the words she removed her supporting hand and put her weight upon the sprained foot. But she uttered an involuntary little cry, and would have fallen, had not Gerard sprang forward and caught her.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to accept my escort back,” he said.

For reply she called out in French to the man who was holding the ponies.

“Is there an inn or cafÉ near by?”

The man broke into polite smiles, showing his white teeth. Effectively there was an inn, just at the turn of the road. Many visitors from Nice stopped there to eat fruit and drink coffee. Madame had hurt herself, without doubt, and wanted to rest. She would find herself quite comfortable there.

“I shall go to the inn,” she said, turning to Gerard. “Perhaps you’ll leave word at my house to send me a comfortable carriage. You need not come back with it.”

“Oh, nonsense,” he replied. “I can lift you into the phaeton and lift you out again. It’s idiotic to make this fuss.”

“I’d sooner crawl than drive back with you,” she flashed, vindictively.

Two sturdy and swarthy peasants had meanwhile come up with the group, and pausing by the horse-tender, received a voluble account of the situation. Gerard shrugged his shoulders.

“How do you propose to get to the inn?”

“These creatures will carry me.”

“I suppose you know you’re making yourself supremely ridiculous?”

“I am accustomed to do what I choose,” retorted Minna. “Dites donc, vous,” she said to the new arrivals.

They hastened to her side. Gerard moved off a few steps and lit a cigar. She explained her desires. The inborn gallantry of the children of the South manifested itself in expressions of delight. They made the military ambulance seat for her with crossed hands, took her up and set off at a brisk pace. Gerard marched behind them sardonically, cursing under his breath, and signed to the third man to follow with the ponies and phaeton. They formed a singular procession. At the turn of the road the little inn came in sight, upon the brow of an embankment overlooking the road. It was a squat white building with “Au SÉjour du Soleil” inscribed in enormous letters across its faÇade. In front of it stood a ramshackle arbour of lattice work, covered with straggling vine, beneath which were rough tables and benches blistered by the sun. Leaving the carriage in the road below, Gerard followed the bearers up the steep path to the door of the inn. The place was quite deserted, save for some fowls, a goat tethered to a post, and the buxom patronne who was grinding coffee in the arbour.

The bearers put Minna to the ground, and she stood on one foot supporting herself between them. The landlady left her coffee, and rushed out to meet her.

“I want a room for an hour or two, where I can lie down until a carriage comes to me from Nice. This gentleman will fetch it,” said Minna.

An interval of explanation and enquiry followed. Then the patronne entered the house to look after the room.

“You need not wait,” said Minna to Gerard, coldly.

“I want to satisfy myself that you are comfortable,” he replied, sitting down on one of the benches.

The landlady reappeared in smiling bustle. The room was quite ready, if Madame would deign to enter and occupy it. The two peasants took up their charming daffodil bundle and vanished into the house, from which they emerged a moment or two afterwards with glowing faces. Gerard responded to their low bows and profuse acknowledgments of Monsieur and Madame’s generosity, with an Englishman’s impatient nod, and continued to swear softly to himself as he smoked. He rose and walked to and fro before the inn, chafing at the ignominious position in which Minna had placed him. Like most men of somewhat flaccid fibre he cursed, now that it was too late, his folly in yielding to her caprice. If he had taken her up bodily and set her in the phaeton and driven off with her, this tomfoolery would have been avoided. As for tamely going back for the carriage, it was out of the question. He would see her, at any rate, before he started, and try to bring her to a state of reason. He was not the man to slink off with his tail between his legs, after a slapped face, like a certain little cur of a Frenchman whom he remembered. Her tantrums were preposterous. She, the Queen of Sheba, to put on the prude for a few snatched kisses! He laughed disagreeably. His pride and his passions were armed allies. But he was not free from some pricks of compunction with regard to her accident. He had not intended to behave brutally, and yet his solicitude had not been very tenderly manifested.

“But, confound it, it’s her own fault,” he exclaimed, with a stamp of his foot.

Ten minutes passed. He waited for a glimpse of the patronne. At last he caught sight of her in the public room of the inn. She came, at his summons, to the door. In his bad French, he explained his desire to see the invalid. Nothing doubting as to his right, the woman bustled before him, and throwing open the door of a room, bade him enter. He strode boldly in. The chamber was rather dark, owing to the shutters being closed against the westering sun. A wooden table, a huge press, and a great four-post bed with white curtains took up most of the space. On the bed lay Minna, with rumpled hair, her feet covered with a shawl. A shoe and a stocking lying on the table by her hat, showed that her hurt had been tended. She rose, indignantly, to a sitting posture as he entered..

“What have you come here for? Why haven’t you gone for the carriage? I can’t stay here all night.”

“I want to make friends first,” he said mildly. “Come, let us forget this little episode. You are angry with me for kissing you. Well, you know, Minna, I wouldn’t have kissed you if I hadn’t cared for you, and if you hadn’t been so lovely and so near to me.”

“Oh, go, for goodness’ sake,” she said, twining her fingers together, nervously. His presence seemed to suffocate her.

“No, I am not going,” he answered, with sudden temper. “I am not the sort of man to be ordered about. I am not going to stir a foot until we literally kiss and make friends. You know perfectly well I have fallen in love with you. I wanted to have you all by yourself to-day to tell you so. So I tell you. I love you, and I insist on being heard.”

“You love me?” she said with great contempt. “You look like it!”

She jerked herself backwards so as to find support against the pillows as she sat.

“What do you propose to do?” she asked him, with an ugly look on her face.

As a matter of fact, he had made no plans whatever, the role of theatrical libertine never having come within his experience. But her question gave an opening for the brute that necessarily lingers in most men.

“I’ll stay here all night, until you kiss me of your own free will.”

“I have always thought of you as a coward,” she said. “I suppose that’s a threat to compromise me. It won’t do me much harm, I assure you.”

He threw his hat and gloves on the table and came close to the bedside. The brute led him on. Her beauty had captivated him. Her scorn angered him. His shifty blue eyes gleamed.

“If you don’t do what I ask—it’s a very small thing—I’ll take it by force and I’ll stay here all night, and I’ll follow you wherever you go and see you every day, until you come to your senses. I love you and I’m not going to be trifled with. And I’m damned if you can say you have given me no encouragement.” He bent forward. She thought he was going to throw his arms round her. All the pent-up hatred of him, all the fermenting elements of self-loathing, remorse, and despair, all the agonising recrudescence of hopeless, passionate love for the man that was and was not her husband, found vent in a hoarse inarticulate cry. And then she lost control of reason, and burst into passionate invective.

“You love me! You! You think a woman who knows what you are would have anything to do with you, save fool you and throw you aside. You who threw away a wife that was worth ten million of me, and a friend that was worth twenty million of you. I hate you. I despise you. I despise you as much as I despise myself, and that’s saying a good deal.” She spat the words at him: “When you were living smugly with your wife, you looked down upon me. Now you have got rid of her, you come to me like a brute and a coward.”

“You’ll kindly leave Mrs. Merriam out of the discussion,” said Gerard sardonically.

“She’s the whole question,” cried Minna. “She and nothing else—she who has been my burning torture and shame for four years. Do you think, because I live recklessly like a wanton woman, that I can’t feel degradation? And you shall feel it too. You fool! You worse than fool! She was as pure as a saint—as one of your Christian saints in heaven—and I was jealous of her—I didn’t know her then—but you—— Do you know where Hugh Colman was that night of the murder? He was with me—all night. The thieves came in by the window I had unbolted for him. He had been married to me for nearly a year. We had quarrelled. It was my fault. I thought I hated him. Oh, God, if you knew how I love him now! Then you would know what love is!”

She paused for breath, which came pantingly. Gerard stood stiff, his eyes fixed upon her, unmoving, as if turned to stone. He passed his tongue over his lips. The enormity of his folly paralysed him. At last words came.

“What kept him silent then?”

“As if you could understand,” she cried in her passionate scorn. “The honour of the bravest man that ever lived. That night—he had seen my father’s will—all my money to go if I married a Christian—we swore to part for ever and keep our marriage secret. I kept him to his promise. I let him go through all that horror—I was coming to tell you that awful night—I was taken ill. Your wife saved his life, not his. And I have been in hell fire ever since.”

“And there I hope to God you’ll remain,” said Gerard in a low voice.

“You shall taste some of it with me. Go to her now and ask her to forgive you.”

“I shall order the carriage for you,” said Gerard. And without another word he turned and walked out of the room.

“He will order the carriage for me. Ha! Ha!” cried Minna.

The buxom patronne heard the laugh, pricked up her ears, and flew to the beautiful lady’s assistance.