"It is. Don't you notice how quiet it is outside?"

They stood hand in hand for a moment. A strange silence seemed to
have fallen upon the streets. Laverick was suddenly conscious of
something which he had never felt when Mademoiselle Idiale had
smiled upon him - a quickening of the pulses, a sense of gathering
excitement which almost took his breath away. His eyes were fixed
upon hers, and he seemed to see the reflection of that same wave
of feeling in her own expressive face. Her lips trembled, her eyes
were deeper and softer than ever. They seemed to be asking him a
question, asking and asking till every fibre of his body was
concentrated in the desperate effort with, which he kept her at
arm's length.

"Is it so very late?" she whispered, coming just a little closer,
so that she was indeed almost within the shelter of his arms.

He clutched her hands almost roughly and raised them to his lips.

"Much too late for me to stay here, child," he said, and his voice
even to himself sounded hard and unnatural.

"Run along to bed. To-morrow night - to-morrow night, then, I will
fetch you. Good-bye!"

He let himself out. He did not even look behind to the spot where
he had left her. He closed the front door and walked with swift,
almost savage footsteps down the quiet Street, across the Square,
and into New Oxford Street. Here he seemed to breathe more freely.