The First Embrace

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

 

“'Madame,' confided Ludor, 'I have tried to forget, but I can not. That is why I am here.'”

 

THE FIRST EMBRACE

A Story of a Satisfying Reward

By E. Phillips Oppenheim

Illustrated by Marshall Frantz

THE wine shop of Jacques Rousillon, situated in the principal street of Cagnes, was dark and cool and cleanly. Madame Rousillon, who stood behind the counter flanked by rows of bottles and sirups, was beautiful. Paul Ludor, who had just strolled across from the railway station, was in no wise disappointed.

“Madame,” he exclaimed, pausing before the counter, hat in hand, “you are even more wonderful here, ches vous, than on the Promenade des Anglais yesterday. I offer you my salutations. You see that I am a man of my word.”

Madame was flattered but confused. That this handsome stranger, altogether Parisian in type and dress, should have remembered their yesterday's brief flirtation and sought her out thus was distinctly pleasing to her vanity. On the other hand, Jacques Rousillon was not very far away, and Jacques was a very jealous husband.

“Monsieur will take something?” she asked, a little timidly.

“A mixed vermuth, if you please, Madame,” he answered. “I gather that there are perhaps distracting circumstances.”

Madame nodded confidentially.

“IT IS Jacques, my husband, who is around,” she whispered. “One must be careful.”

“My dear lady, do I not understand?” Ludor replied. “I am not without experience. I know these husbands. Still, they are to be eluded, are they not?”

“At times,” Madame admitted, serving her visitor with his drink. “Just now, Jacques is difficult. He is annoyed that I did not stay and serve in the café all yesterday while he went to the fête. He detests my going to Nice. It is absurd.”

“Madame,” Ludor declared, “if you were my wife you would never go to Nice.”

She laughed gaily. “Monsieur, too, is jealous?”

He tried to take her hand across the counter, but with a nervous glance behind her she eluded him.

“Not jealous but a monopolist,” he confessed. “Nice, if you would, or Monte Carlo, or Paris—but with me.”

“Ah, the sound of those places!” she sighed.

“But you should know them all,” he urged. “You have a great gift, Madame. You are beautiful. Here they know nothing. In Monte Carlo or in Paris you would be acclaimed.”

HER eyes—they were indeed soft and dark and lustrous—flashed with imagined joys. She leaned toward him and this time she forgot those shuffling footsteps behind.

“Monsieur flatters,” she murmured.

“Do I not prove my words?” he insisted. “Am I not here? I, but yesterday from Paris where indeed, Madame, I have many friends.”

“Sweethearts, perhaps,” she sighed.

“Give me but the chance, Madame,” he begged, “and I will speak to you of these things.”

She looked out over his shoulder into the hot, dusty little street. A tumble-down victoria was drawn up outside, and upon the driver's seat was a bibulous-looking man with a white hat and a red nose. His vehicle was in the last stage of dilapidation. He himself appeared to be asleep. There was nothing else to look at except the dreary front of the station. Without a doubt she was weary of Cagnes and her life of hard work. There was no one here who spoke to her like this. If, indeed, she were as beautiful as this man seemed to think, why could she not also be happy?

“Monsieur is not serious,” she said. “He is just a traveler. To-day he is here; to-morrow he will have passed and forgotten.”

“Madame,” he confided, “Céleste, you permitted me to say, during those few minutes yesterday—I have tried to forget, but I can not. That is why I am here.”

Again the shuffling behind, and Madame was frightened. “If my husband comes out,” she warned him, “you must be careful. Sit down, and will you not smoke? You have too much the air of being in earnest. It might seem so to him—alas, not to me.”

Ludor obeyed her wishes. He seated himself at a small table close to the counter.

“Monsieur returns to Nice this afternoon?” she inquired.

He shook his head.

“As it happens, no,” he answered. “I have an old friend here whom I desire to visit. Madame de Soyau of the Villa Sabatin. You know where it is?”

She nodded.

“It is two miles away. Up in the hills toward Saint Paul,” she told him. “It is to see his friend, then, that Monsieur has come.”

“Indeed, no,” he replied emphatically. “It is a chance that my friend lives here. Fate, perhaps. Who knows? Nevertheless, believe this; even though I had not been on my way to the Villa Sabatin, to-day would have found me here. If to-night could only find me at your feet?”

THE shuffling footsteps behind had ceased, but Madame was scarcely aware of the fact. She was like a beautiful animal fascinated by her trainer. The pallid cheeks, the cynical smile, the cold eyes, the perfectly tailored exterior of this man with his honeyed speech was to her the last word in the things which women might desire. He was without doubt a type. She was his for the lifting of a finger—but there was Jacques.

“You are trying to turn my head, Monsieur,” she faltered. “And to-morrow you will have gone away.”

“Not I,” he assured her. “I shall stay with my friend at least a week. I have luggage at the station. I did not let them know that I was coming on purpose. I wanted these few minutes with you to talk, perhaps to plan.”

Madame had forgotten the caution. She leaned across the counter and her eyes were eloquent. “If only there were another fête day!” she murmured.

“And what of it if there were?” a harsh voice by her side demanded.

She turned around, terrified. Her husband had, unnoticed, pushed open the door at her back, and was standing by her side. Already he was fingering the fastenings of the flap under the counter.

“Jacques!” she exclaimed. “But how quietly you came in!”

“Quietly!” he scoffed. “But that depends. A new customer! I do not seem to recognize your face, Monsieur.”

“Why should you?” Ludor answered carelessly. “I have never been inside your café before. I called in for a mixed vermuth and to ask the way to the Villa Sabatin.”

JACQUES ROUSILLON stooped down and emerged on the other side of the counter. It was obvious now that this visiting Lothario was a small man. He did not even reach to the shoulders of the giant who stood before him.

“There are customers who are welcome here,” Jacques Rousillon declared, “and there are customers who are not. That is where you come in, my fine fellow. You understand?”

“Not in the least,” Ludor replied. “I understand that you are very rude. What harm do I do in your café? Sit down and drink a glass of wine with me.”

“A glass of wine?” Jacques Rousillon repeated. “Monsieur offers a glass of wine? Make it brandy and I will drink with him.”

“Whatever you will,” the visitor agreed.

Madame filled two glasses, received the money, and handed back the change. Her fingers touched Ludor's for a moment. Then she drew her hand quickly away. Her husband was watching.

“Good health!” Ludor said, raising his glass.

“To hell with you!” was the scowling response. “There's your brandy. Clear out!”

He dashed the contents of his glass into Ludor's face. The latter sprang to his feet. As quick as lightning his fists shot out and the innkeeper staggered backwards. He recovered himself in a moment, however. With a roar of anger he swung round, took hold of his assailant by the collar and the legs and, lifting him off his feet, carried him to the door. A moment later Ludor found himself lying in the dusty high road. Jacques Rousillon stood in the doorway glaring at him. Behind the counter Madame sobbed. She knew her husband and his ways. In a few minutes it would probably be her turn.

“'Ludor,' said Cardinge, 'I desire to forget that we have ever been acquainted. Let that finish it between us.'”

“IS IT my fancy, Paul,” Madame asked, “or are you perhaps not quite so careful about your appearance as in the old days? Your clothes are as well cut as usual, but your collar is crumpled and your tie has surely seen better days.”

“Madame,” her visitor replied, “my first words should have been words of apology. Believe me, I presented myself here with many misgivings. A slight contretemps in the town—I slipped while crossing the road and was dragged out of the way hurriedly to avoid being run over—accounts for the deficiencies of my toilet. But for a very persistent cab-driver who refused to leave me, I do not know how I would have arrived.”

“I am relieved,” Madame murmured. “In other respects I must confess that I find you marvelously unchanged.”

“With you, without a doubt,” and he sighed, ”the world has stood still

She shrugged her shoulders.

“I make a brave show,” she said, “but the enameler, the coiffeur, the corsetiére, and above all, my modiste have to work hard for me. What do you think of our friend Cardinge here?”

“Monsieur remains, as ever, distinguished, but he is without doubt fifteen years older,” Ludor acknowledged.

“After all, then,” Cardinge observed, “I remain natural. For it is fifteen years since we met. As for you, Ludor, you have sold yourself, I think, to the devil. There is not a gray hair in your head, not a line upon your face. Just as you were pale in those days, you are pale now. One would have guessed you then anywhere between twenty-five and thirty-five. One would guess the same now.”

“Flattery, from a man!” Ludor exclaimed. “It is the real thing, that! May I not be presented to Mademoiselle?” he added, glancing to the farther end of the terrace where Claire was talking to Armand.

“In good time,” Madame replied. “First, about yourself?”

“I remain the same,” Ludor acknowledged. “In the regrettable suspension of our mutual undertakings I have committed a few crimes and collected a humble fortune.”

Madame regarded him curiously—Cardinge, fixedly.

“You have the same hobbies?” the former demanded.

“Precisely, Madame,” Ludor confessed, with a little smile. “I am a murderer by instinct as well as by profession. I have never found any thrill to compare with that of taking life.”

Madame bit her lips. She was on the point of shuddering.

“Are we to take you literally?” she inquired.

“Entirely. Why not? You remember the affair of the Maître Hellier, the day before the trial of Estelle and François? Also—”

“Hellier was in arms against us,” Madame broke in. “We did not call that murder. He had fair warning.”

Ludor smiled.

“Are we becoming squeamish?” he asked. “But no matter. There have been many since Maître Hellier. A motive is well enough, but I like to kill without a motive. The artistic sensation is more poignant, and the risk of detection almost nil. If it is permitted I will change my collar.”

Madame touched a bell.

“They will show you your room,” she said. “There will be some tea here presently. We dine at eight.”

LUDOR withdrew and Madame and Cardinge exchanged glances.

“Ludor is unchanged,” the latter remarked.

Madame nodded.

“He will probably find us a little—shall I say unenterprising?”

“As we are, so I trust we will remain,” Cardinge rejoined.

Madame looked at him for a moment, lazily.

“You are a free man,” she reminded him. “I have no further claim upon you. Welcome though you are, I sometimes wonder why you stay on.”

“Perhaps because I have nowhere to go,” he said bitterly. “If at any time—”

“Do not be blatant,” she interrupted. “You are welcome here so long as you choose—for the rest of your life, if you will. If ever I give you that little hint to pass on—well, you know what the cause will be.”

She looked down toward the other end of the piazza. Claire had risen to her feet and was coming toward them.

“I presume I have a certain amount of common sense,” Cardinge observed drearily. “At least I know that I am on the threshold of forty.”

“There have been times,” Madame murmured, “when I have fancied that you were beginning to forget that.”

“Never seriously,” he assured her. “One has dreams, but they pass.”

“And prejudices,” Madame added, “and they remain.”

He sighed.

“It is true that I do not like Armand Toyes.”

“It is my intention,” Madame declared. “to marry Claire to Armand.”

“In which case,” Cardinge pronounced, “I had better leave your roof as soon as possible, for there will be war between us.”

Madame was coldly but terribly angry. She drew back.

“After we have dealt with Ludor,” she said, “it would perhaps be as well if we to an understanding.”

“I am entirely at your service, Madame,” he replied politely. “Incidentally—what are you going to do about Ludor?”

Claire turned abruptly away from Armand and came down the piazza toward them. She spoke with an affectation of carelessness, but the color had risen in her cheeks and her lips were were trembling.

“I do not think that Budapest has improved Armand,” she complained.

Armand followed her, long and thin, with a wicked sneer upon his lips, the beauty of his face temporarily obscured by his expression.

“The child misunderstands too readily,” he protested. “Send her back, Madame. I must teach her wisdom.”

Ludor, returning, created a diversion. He had eyes for no one but Claire.

“May I be presented?” he begged. “I had the felicity to see Mademoiselle in the distance on my arrival.”

Madame acquiesced without enthusiasm.

“Monsieur Ludor—my niece, Miss Claire Fantenay. I must warn you, Claire, not to believe a word that Monsieur Ludor says.”

“It is treating me unfairly,” Ludor grumbled. “The truth, however, proclaims itself. I find Mademoiselle the freshest and the sweetest flower in this wonderful valley of yours.”

“My niece is not used to such compliments,” Madame said coldly.

“Return to Armand, child, or order a cab and go to the Tennis Club. We elders have business to discuss.”

Clair turned away and entered the hotel. Armand came strolling toward them, handsome once more, having completely regained his self-assurance.

“Business?” he repeated. “May I not join?”

“You may not,” Madame replied. “That time has not come yet.”

The young man stood his ground.

“It seems to me,” he grumbled, “that you make use of me without allowing me to amuse myself by knowing beforehand what is to happen.”

“No one is permitted to question my word, Armand,” Madame reminded him. “You know that. Leave us.

HER nephew did not venture to dispute the matter further. He strolled off and disappeared in the direction of the garage. Ludor looked after him curiously.

“I suggest that we proceed to business,” Madame said.

“To business, by all means,” Ludor assented, stretching himself in his armchair. “Nothing interests me so much. You sounded the tocsin and behold, I arrive. Show me what it is that you desire. Incidentally it would be as well that I secure acquittance.”

“I am not sure that we desire anything of you, Paul,” Madame confided.

“What? That brain of yours sleeps, Madame? Nothing doing? Nobody to remove? Then for what purpose have I been brought all these miles?”

“I might answer,” Madame replied, “to receive your quittance. You would be more fortunate than the others who came. They have had to work for it.”

“To work? But that is the joy of my life,” Ludor confessed, examining his carefully manicured finger nails. “There is no one who loves his work as I do.”

Madame shivered ever so slightly.

“Paul,” she declared, “you're a tiger.”

He smiled coldly, tapped a cigaret upon the table and played with a match.

“I at least do not change with the years,” he said. “There were days when we played with life and death with a jest on our lips. Life was the ball we threw in the air and caught—perhaps. What did it matter? A few years either way. I come back and I find you, Madame unenterprising, and my friend Cardinge, I gravely fear, a sentimentalist.”

“I have earned my quittance,” Cardinge reminded him.

“You are no longer one of the famous Virgins, then,” Ludor remarked. “Well, as for me, I am one still. I ask for work.”

Madame rose to her feet and crossed the room. She unlocked the secretaire, drew from it a padlocked box which again she unlocked. Presently she returned, leaving all behind secure. She carried in her hand a sealed envelop, yellow with age.

“Here is your quittance, Paul,” she said. “I return your deposit.”

He fingered the envelop doubtfully for a moment. Then he smiled.

“For the moment this had escaped my memory,” he confessed, as he thrust it into his pocket. “It contains a brief account of the first time I realized the curious fascination of destroying life—a matter forgotten now, beyond a doubt. A little girl who thought that I had deceived her! What a banal word! Nevertheless, she was about to open her mouth—so I closed it.”

He drew a penknife from his pocket and amused himself by cutting the document into small pieces. Madame and Cardinge watched him. There was something in their faces which seemed to bring Madame into the likeness of a human being; Cardinge, into the ranks of the sentimentalists whom Ludor had derided.

“I have been a criminal,” Madame admitted. “The lights and shades of crime appealed to me so much in my younger days that I founded the most famous society of modern times with the sole object of defying the law. Even now they talk in Paris of 'Madame and her Virgins.' But either I have grown softer with the years, or you, Paul, offend my sense of what is humorous or beautiful in wrong-doing. I do not think that I shall ask you to become our guest. You have received your quittance. I require no service of you in return. At what time may I order you a car?”

Ludor seemed faintly amused, but, at the same time, annoyed. He looked across the valley.

“Dear me!” he sighed. “And I thought that I might have spent such a pleasant week here. I am not to be allowed to see more of your beautiful ward?”

“That happens naturally,” Madame assured him. “I do not need to intervene there. Mademoiselle would most certainly detest you.”

“I may not even dine?”

“I should prefer not,” his hostess acknowledged. “It is fifteen years since we met, Paul, and I tell you quite frankly that I have taken a dislike to you.”

“Are you not rash?” he asked softly. “I could turn what they call in England 'King's Evidence.' There are still some undiscovered tragedies of the time when 'Madame and her Virgins' were the terror of Paris.”

She smiled scornfully.

“The law looks askance at turning back the leaves a score of years,” she reminded him. “Besides, there are still a few of my Virgins unabsolved. You would scarcely be asked, even, to choose the manner of your death.”

“I,” Cardinge observed, “'am absolved. But that would not save your life. Informers and vermin one kills as a matter of course.”

THE butler had answered Madame's ring. She turned to him.

“Monsieur finds that he will be unable to remain to-night,” she said. “Repack his things and bring them down. Order a car to be round in a few minutes.”

“Madame,” the man replied, “Monsieur's clothes are as yet unpacked. Concerning the cars, however, there is a difficulty. Mademoiselle has taken the limousine to the Tennis Club and Monsieur Armand the Rolls-Royce into Nice. Madame will remember that the magneto from the third car has been sent away.”

“Pray do not let the method of my departure disturb you,” Ludor said. “Behold, for some reason my charioteer of an hour ago returns. He can take me to Cagnes.”

Up the last stretch of the avenue came a tumble-down victoria, drawn by a weary horse and driven by the man with the red nose and the white hat. Madame signed to the butler to withdraw.

“He returns opportunely,” she observed.

“But why?” Ludor murmured.

Cardinge rose from his place and strolled down the steps. The coachman removed his hat.

“It is for the Monsieur whom I drove here,” he announced. “I discovered in the bottom of the carriage—this.”

He held out a small black memorandum book. Cardinge took it into his hand and turned toward Ludor, who had joined him at the foot of the steps.

“The pocketbook of Monsieur,” the driver remarked triumphantly.

Ludor took the book into his hands, turned over the pages, carelessly at first; then with a certain suddenly developed interest. In the end he returned it to the man.

“You have had your drive for nothing,” he told him. ”The pocketbook is not mine.”

The cocher threw out his hands. He pointed to the tired horse. He tapped his watch.

“It is an affair of an hour,” he grumbled. “No one else has been in the carriage to-day. How could I tell that the pocketbook did not belong to Monsieur?”

“You will not have had your journey for nothing,” Ludor declared. “You can take me back to the railway station.”

The cocher was mollified. The luggage of Paul Ludor was brought down and stowed away. Ludor himself returned, hat in hand, to Madame.

“Madame,” he observed, “it is an inglorious finish, this, to a wonderful epoch. Think well before you send me away. There is no one who can do what I can do so fearlessly, with so little risk. I come prepared. I carry a hundred deaths with me.”

She shook her head.

“I have slipped down a notch in the code,” she confessed. “I may still rob, but in own way, and from those whom I select. To destroy no longer appeals.”

“It is a great pity,” he said simply, “And you, Cardinge?”

“I am even more of a renegade,” was the apologetic reply. ”I am seriously thinking of becoming an honest man.”

A slight expression of pain flickered across Ludor's face. So might a great artist have listened to one of the discords of life.

“It is a great disappointment to me, this visit,” he acknowledged, as he took his place in the voiture. “Nevertheless, farewell!”

HE WAVED his hat. The cocher cracked his whip. Ludor was driven away down the winding avenue, between the clumps of flowering rhododendrons, the little petals of orange-blossoms drifting down through the lemon and verbena-scented air. None of these things at the moment were appealing to the solitary passenger of the victoria. His air of indifferent toleration had vanished. There was something in his expression reminiscent of vermin suddenly conscious of danger. There was some sort of contraction to his mouth. His teeth gleamed white and set. He leaned forward, unfastened the straps of his dressing bag, and from a leather case drew out a wicked-looking little implement of dull black metal. Then he watched the road; watched the fields around and waited. There was a certain point which he remembered where the road curved through a small plantation of pine trees with a precipice on the left-hand side. As they neared it he leaned forward in his seat. The horse was still proceeding at a long, shambling trot.

“You'll have that horse down, cocher,” he warned him. “I don't want to be thrown into the road. Drive more carefully—down hill.”

The man mumbled something and pulled his horse back into a walk. Ludor looked cautiously around, looked behind, and leaned over the side to see as much of the coming curve as possible. Then he struck with unerring and practised skill at a certain place at the back of the driver's head. The man rolled over like log and fell into the road. Ludor sprang lightly from his place, reached the horse's head and brought him to a standstill. Down the precipice on the left were great boulders of stone. In thirty seconds the body of the cocher was rolling down amongst them. Then, without much effort, Ludor turned the victoria on to its side, dragging the horse with it. There was still no sound except the frightened gasping of the horse struggling to rise, the snapping of the shaft, the groaning and creaking of the old vehicle. All the time Ludor noticed and remembered afterwards that blackbird on the top of the nearest tree went on singing unconcernedly. He then entered upon what was to him the most unpleasant part of his task. He deliberately lay down and rolled over in the dusty road, tore a fragment of his exceedingly well-cut trousers, gashed his left hand, turning at once away, for, as he was always willing to confess, the sight of blood made him sick. He then took up a heavy fragment of granite and made sure that the nature of the wound on the back of his unfortunate victim's head was undiscoverable. After which, with his dressing-bag in his hand, he tramped shouting down the hill.

MADAME looked up with mingled terror and delight at his entrance. Suddenly realizing his condition she threw up her hand

“But, Monsieur,” she exclaimed, “what has happened? An accident? Jacques, too, my husband—”

“Have no fear,” he interrupted, setting down his dressing case. “Thy husband, with all the rest of the village, is crowding up the hill to see what remains of the catastrophe.”

“Catastrophe!” she cried. “Monsieur is hurt?”

“Only shaken,” he replied. “Nevertheless, while I talk, give me a glass of brandy. Good! I was descending from the Villa Sabatin in that rickety old victoria which stands at the station, when the horse shied and stumbled. The driver was thrown from the box and fell on his head. Carriage, horse, and driver, they all rolled down the precipice. As for me, I was quick and I escaped by a miracle. I walked down for help. They've all gone. Your husband was one of the foremost. He cannot be back for half an hour at least.”

Madame listened.

“Monsieur,” she whispered, “it is terrible to think that you have been in danger.”

He moved toward the end of the counter. His eyes were fixed upon her. She seemed to obey their unspoken message and followed him. At the end he leaned over. His arm was around her neck for a moment. Their lips met. Then he drew away.

“Céleste, you are wonderful,” he murmured. “Life shall be wonderful for you.”

“But what can I do?” she cried. “Even if I had the courage—if I left Jacques, he would follow and kill me.”

“There is a way of providing against that,” he assured her. “That is, if you have the courage. I will give you something. You put it in his coffee. It is tasteless. No one will ever know. He will be ill—at any rate too weak to travel for weeks. A fortnight to-day—do you understand?— a fortnight to-day you get on the train which leaves Cagnes for Cannes at three thirty-five. I shall be in the train—in the back part. From Cannes we shall take the train for Paris. You will send me a telegram to the address I shall give you at Nice, to say that you are coming. Will you do this?”

“Yes,” she answered.

Her voice—it was a very musical voice generally, with a pleasant inflection and a curious softness—had suddenly become thick and hoarse. Her eyes were like still fires of passion. Her hands, brown and hardened with work, but shapely, clutched the edge of the counter. He handed her a little packet and she dropped it into the bosom of her gown. Then he tore a sheet of paper from a pocket book and wrote hastily upon it.

“I go now,” he continued, “to make my report to the police on this wretched accident. Afterwards to Nice, perhaps to Monte Carlo, to pass as best I may this fortnight. You will not fail me, Céleste?”

“I will not fail you,” she promised.

He looked at her meaningly.

“You understand—that he will be ill? Have no fear. There is no living doctor who could tell the reason why.”

“I understand,” she answered.

THIRTEEN days later Cardinge, seated underneath one of the striped umbrellas outside the Café de Paris at Monte Carlo, became suddenly aware that the occupant of the next table was Paul Ludor. The recognition was mutual. The latter, with his glass in his hand, rose and slipped into the vacant chair at Cardinge's side.

“You permit?” he murmured. “I think, perhaps, I can amuse you if you have a minute or two to spare.”

“I have plenty of time to spare,” Cardinge admitted.

“I will tell you the story of my accident,” Ludor continued. “I fancy that it will appeal to your sense of humor. You will remember that the driver of the victoria who followed me up to the villa came with the excuse of a pocketbook.”

“I remember.”

“It became immediately obvious to me that the return of that pocketbook was an excuse. The ink in it was not dry. Accordingly I studied the cocher's face—providentially. Do you realize who he was?”

Cardinge shook his head.

“At the inquest they simply said that he was a newcomer who had brought his horse and victoria over from Nice.”

“His name,” Ludor declared, “was Coichan. He was a private detective who had caused me annoyance on more than one occasion. I shall never commit a crime in which detection is possible, but there was a little affair with a troublesome tradesman which left just a shadow of a clue—nothing that could ever be proved, but it was sufficient, perhaps, to create suspicion. Coichan got hold of it, and he has several times since made himself a nuisance to me. I realized that this must be put a stop to. On the way down the hill I—pardon me, but I know your prejudice—I disposed of him, stage-managed the accident, et voilà tout.”

Cardinge shrugged his shoulders. He declined to show any emotion.

“A detective must take his risks,” he observed.

“Precisely,” the other agreed. “I was never afraid of Coichan, but he was as well out of the way and the opportunity was not to be missed. Cagnes was quite a fortunate place for me.” he went on, ruminatingly. “Women, I know, for some reason or other are not your weakness—but there is a little lady there at the Café de L'Univers. I met her the day before in Nice—simply charming.”

“Why, her husband died, last week,” Cardinge remarked. “I remember seeing the funeral.”

Ludor sighed.

“How unfortunate—and yet how opportune!” he exclaimed. “Madame joins me on the train which leaves here at two-thirty this afternoon. I am taking her to Paris. She will amuse me for some months at any rate."

His companion rose to his feet.

“Ludor,” he pronounced, “I find you a detestable fellow. I desire to forget that we have ever been acquainted. Let that finish it between us. You understand?”

He strolled away. Ludor looked after his quondam associate and there was evil in his face.

THERE was not the slightest change in the expression of Paul Ludor as from the carriage window he watched the keeping of his tryst. Céleste was there on the platform; a little crowd of relatives bidding her affectionate adieux. He watched the embraces, watched the small company of soberly clad peasants wave their farewells as the train left the station. Presently he folded up his paper, and strolled through the train until he came to the compartment where he was sitting—the sole occupant.

“Céleste!” he murmured.

She looked at him out of her beautiful eyes

“Sit down by my side,” she begged, “I am afraid.”

He patted her hand encouragingly.

“There is nothing to fear,” he assured her. “All will be well now. We have an hour to wait at Cannes. I shall take you to the shops and buy you some pretty trifles. On the train to Paris I have everything arranged. We shall be very comfortable and very happy. Is it not so, Céleste?”

Those wonderful eyes were lifted for a moment and Ludor was immensely interested. Was it possible that she was going to turn his head? Even her clothes, at the thought of which he had shuddered, were passable. Nevertheless, when they arrived at Cannes, he bought her a black silk traveling cloak and a black hat, some gloves and a trifle of jewelry. As he watched the transformation he began to realize that he had found a prize.... When the train for Paris came thundering in he showed her with pleasure the wagon lit into which their luggage was taken.

“It will be a great pleasure, this journey,” he declared. “First of all, we must dine—there is a rush for places. And afterwards—”

“Our first embrace,” she whispered.

They were very gay at dinner-time. Céleste ate little, but she drank her share of champagne and laughed when they compared the brandy to the brandy of the café. Afterwards they made their way back to their compartment. He closed the door.

“Our first embrace,” he reminded her.

She laughed softly.

“Tell me one thing,” she begged. “Did you know when you gave me the powder that he would die?”

Ludor smiled.

“It was so much better,” he explained. “There might have been trouble afterwards. Now we have nothing to fear.”

The train roared into a tunnel. His arms went around her. Then he saw a light in her eyes such as he had never dreamed of—the light of something else flashing in the jet blackness; heard the sickening hiss of steel driven through human flesh, his flesh. Then a moment's pain and blackness. The train came tearing out into the light. Céleste looked at what she had done and laughed.

“I THINK my nerve must be going,” Madame sighed, as she laid down the newspaper. “This has given me quite a shock.”

Cardinge paused in the act of lighting a cigaret.

“My nerves remain unaffected,” he declared. “What I am suffering from is an obtrusive wave of morality. As a Virgin, even one who has received his quittance, I should regret this disaster to vice. Instead I find the whole affair most satisfactory.”

Armand took up the paper with a grin.

“It's so damned funny,” was his comment.