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“You were civil to me when your friend would have sent me contemptuously away,” she said. “And when I told you that I had dined at the Café de Paris only three weeks ago, and your friend laughed, you did not. You pretended that you believed it. That was polite of you. For we both knew that never once in all my life have I dined at the Café de Paris or any such swell restaurant in Paris. And it was kind of you. It made me ready to fancy that I had dined there and that does one a little good, eh? One feels better in one’s self. So I will be kind in my turn. You are interested in that little one,” and she jerked her head towards the table in the Bar, where Marguerite had rejoined the noisy group. “Yes, she has chic, and she is pretty on her feet, and she has a personality, but—” Paul Ravenel leaned forward, his face hardening.

“Mademoiselle, I do not want to hear.”

“Oh, I am not going to crab her,” replied Henriette, and her petulant temper flamed up. “You think, I suppose, that women cannot admire a girl who is younger and prettier than themselves and cannot like her. That is foolish. I tell you we all like Marguerite Lambert. And I speak to you for your good and hers. But, of course, if you do not care to hear me—”

“I beg your pardon, Mademoiselle,” said Paul. “I will listen to you very willingly.”

Henriette’s passions were no more than bubbles upon the surface of her good-humour. They burst very quickly and left no traces. The flush faded from her throat and forehead and no doubt from the painted cheeks as well, though that could not be discovered by mortal eye.

“Listen,” she said. “Your friend asked me what Marguerite Lambert was doing at the Villa Iris, and I would not answer him. Why should I? It was clear what he meant, wasn’t it? Why was she, who might really have dined at the Café de Paris three weeks ago, already here at Casablanca, so near to the end of things?” Henriette’s face grew for a moment haggard with terror, as she formulated the problem. The last stage but one of the dreadful pilgrimage of her class! She herself was making that journey, and what lay beyond and so hideously close, loomed up when she thought of it, and appalled her.

Paul interrupted her with a word of solace.

“You are making too much of his question.”

But Henriette would have none of his consolation.

“No, that is what he 

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