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Jacques and I are well, but still miss our only sister very much. The shop flourishes. We took twenty-six francs more last week than the week before, though a storm on Wednesday robbed us of six good litres.

Your loving brother,

Jean.

Covertly Lacaze watched her read it and lay it down. Something—Heaven knows what—told him that here was matter she did not wish him to see. He went to work delicately.

“Ah!” he cried of a sudden. “The thing had escaped me. My dear, to-morrow put on your very best gown. We are going to the wedding of Robert and José Tuyte.”

Madeleine winced.

“Must we, Pierre? José Tuyte is awfully clever, I know. But she is an actress, and—and I do not go well with the stage. I am too slow for them.”

(If to appear nightly in the costume of a child of seven at The Dead Rat, there to accept cigarettes and encourage the purchase of champagne, is to be an actress, Madeleine was perfectly right. That she was too slow for such a ‘stage’ was unarguable.)

“My dear, what would you? Robert is a good friend, and I knew José before I knew you. They would be most hurt. Besides, marriage is like a wet sponge. It wipes clean the slate. You need not, you know, dance all the time.”