“Well, since I am here,” he said, as though he had come to this spot quite by accident, “I may as well go in and make my peace with Marguerite Lambert. For all I know I may be quitting the world altogether very shortly, and why should I leave unnecessary enemies to hate my memory.” Thus he explained quite satisfactorily to himself his reason for entering and looking about him for Marguerite. But she was nowhere to be seen—no, not even amongst the Dagoes and the Levantines. She must be outside in the cool of the balcony beneath the roof of vines. But a glance there showed him that he was wrong. There was nothing for it but to approach the virago behind the Bar, who hotter and redder than ever on this night in early May, was polishing away at her counter and serving out the drinks. Gerard ordered one and taking it from her hand, said carelessly: “Mademoiselle Marguerite is not here to-night?” Madame Delagrange made a vicious dab with her duster and cried in an exasperation: “Look, Monsieur! When she is here I have nothing but complaints. That little Marguerite! She holds her nose in the air as if we smelled. She looks at us as if we were animals at a circus—and she has nothing to be conceited about with her thin shoulders and tired face. Now she is gone, it is all the time—‘What have you done with our little Marguerite?’ Well, I have done nothing.” She turned to another customer. “For you, Monsieur? A bottle of champagne? Abdullah shall bring it to you.” Abdullah in his Turkish breeches was handed the dreadful decoction and Gerard de Montignac tried again: “She has left the Villa Iris altogether?” “Yes, yes, yes. She has gone, that Miss Ni’Touche!” “And where has she gone?” The harridan behind the Bar flung up her hands. “Saperlipoppette, how should I know, I ask you? I beg you, Monsieur, to allow me to serve my clients who do not think that because they have bought a whiskey-soda, they have become proprietors for the night of the Villa Iris.” With an indignant nod she turned to some other customers. Gerard wandered out into the verandah, where he sat down rather heavily. He was more troubled than he would have thought possible. After all the disappearance of a little dancing girl from a Bar in
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