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the hotel?”
    “But yes, monsieur.”
    “And the lady?”
    The man smiled gently. “Monsieur …”
    “I think I have met her in England,” said Warren quietly. “If you could ascertain her name for me?”
    “But certainly.”
    He moved away among the crowd. In a few minutes he was back again. “Monsieur,” he said. “Her name is Miss Naughton. She is registered as British.”
    “Ah, yes,” said Warren carelessly. “She stays in the same suite?”
    “But certainly.”
    “I am infinitely obliged.”
    The man bowed himself away, and Warren turned again to his companions. “One meets so many people,” he said apologetically.
    He stayed with them through a long dinner, to thecoffee and cigars. At the end he made his apologies. “I must catch the morning aeroplane for London,” he said, “and I must get some sleep. We shall meet again in London, on the 20th. I shall look forward to that with great pleasure.”
    He bade them good-bye, and went out to the lounge. “Prince Ali Said,” he said. “He is in his suite?”
    The man lifted a telephone; Warren waited, idly studying airline and steamship posters. This was the end, he thought.
    “The name, monsieur?”
    “Ask if he will receive Mr. Henry Warren.”
    The man spoke.
    “He says, if you will go up, monsieur.”
    He mounted swiftly in the lift; in the sitting-room of the suite the Prince received him, swarthy and immaculate in black and white. “This is indeed a pleasure, my dear Warren,” he said courteously. “You are staying in this hotel?”
    “No longer than I can help,” said Warren. He glanced around the room, the deep carpets and the garish furniture. “I came to have a few words with my wife.”
    The Arab frowned in bewilderment. “Surely you are making some mistake,” he said. “You will not find your wife here.”
    “That may be,” said Warren evenly. “Because if I find her here, she will no longer be my wife.”
    He stared at the other reflectively. “I suppose if I were half a man I’d be knocking the stuffing out of you,” he said, “or trying to. If you had been the first … But as it is, I think I’m through. I’m not goingto make a lot of trouble over this. I’m going to get out, and leave you to it.”
    He smiled. “Perhaps, if my wife is not here, you would present me to Miss Naughton,” he said.
    “I am afraid you are completely misinformed, Mr. Warren,” said the Arab. “As you can see for yourself, I am staying here alone. It is true that Miss Naughton dined with me this evening, but she has now returned to her hotel.”
    “In that case,” said Warren, “we can take a look at the next room without disturbing her.” He moved methodically from room to room, opening cupboards and examining curtains.
    The Arab watched him with a grave smile. “A pleasant suite, is it not?” he said. “I find this a very good hotel.”
    “And a complaisant one,” said Warren.
    He moved towards the door. “I see that my wife is not here now,” he said, a little wearily. “I suppose I ought to offer you apologies. But I’m not going to.”
    He left the Arab standing in the middle of his suite, and went down to the writing-room upon the mezzanine. He wrote a note, and took it to the porter’s desk.
    “For Miss Naughton,” he said, and gave it to the man, with twenty francs. “See that she gets it to-night.”
    He went up slowly to his room, threw open the window of his balcony, and stood for a time in the cold air looking out over the roofs of Paris. Beneath him in the street the traffic ran, shadowy and remote; a flake or two of snow slipped past him in the night. His marriage had not been real to him for many years, butnow that it was drawing to a close he knew that a great gap was opening in his life, how great he could not say. He only knew that he was coming to great changes, and that itself was difficult for him.
    He grew cold at last, and turned back into the room. He unpacked his bag, slowly undressed,