Count laughed--"that we keep for the wives of other men!"

Longmore afterwards remembered in favour of his friend's fine manner
that he had not measured at this moment the dusky abyss over which it
hovered. Hut a deepening subterranean echo, loudest at the last,
lingered on his spiritual ear. For the present his keenest sensation was
a desire to get away and cry aloud that M. de Mauves was no better than
a pompous dunce. He bade him an abrupt good-night, which was to serve
also, he said, as good-bye.

"Decidedly then you go?" It was spoken almost with the note of
irritation.

"Decidedly."

"But of course you'll come and take leave--?" His manner implied that
the omission would be uncivil, but there seemed to Longmore himself
something so ludicrous in his taking a lesson in consideration from M.
de Mauves that he put the appeal by with a laugh. The Count frowned as
if it were a new and unpleasant sensation for him to be left at a loss.
"Ah you people have your facons!" he murmured as Longmore turned away,
not foreseeing that he should learn still more about his facons before
he had done with him.

Longmore sat down to dinner at his hotel with his usual good intentions,
but in the act of lifting his first glass of wine to his lips he
suddenly fell to musing and set down the liquor untasted. This mood
lasted long, and when he emerged from it his fish was cold; but that
mattered little, for his appetite was gone. That evening he packed his
trunk with an indignant energy. This was so effective that the operation