Part 15 (1/2)

”They're engaged,” Mrs Falconer explained to her host ”Isn't it ridiculous? As you know, she hasn't a cent in the world, and his family are not in the secret, but Molly and De Presle-Vaulx _are_, and _I_ aht them off in pity for a spin to Paris”

The apparition of the lady, whosebeauty had a fresh charm every time he saw her--her worldly wisdo with her, his past debauch in philanthropies seeht of her Bulstrode also realized hoonderfully separated from her the introduction of another life into his environarden is a waste,” the lady criticised, ”dusty and dull I don't wonder you're getting away Fontainebleau, too, was only a _faute de et really far away at this season It's the time when only the persons who are actually bred in its stones can stay in Paris--certainly the birds of passageto Trouville,” she said; ”we are all going to h Normandy Won't you come--won't you come?” He shook his head

Mrs Falconer looked across the terrace to where a little chair had been overturned, and on the floor by its side lay a broken doll

”Jiht ”You _have_ broken your doll!”

Bulstrode said: ”Yes, beyond repair, and I don't want another” Then in a feords, briefly, a little iave her the story

Listening, absorbed, her char eyes on him or at one moment turned suspiciously away, the lady heard him to the end, and at the end said softly:

”Jimmy, my poor Jiht? Not that it matters in the least--it's what people _do_ that counts--but oh, I treht”--he spoke with so like bitterness--”be less harlass of iced tea, put her goblet down on the tray and rose, cohtly laid her hand on his arm

”You are, then, so very lonely? So lonely that you would be capable of doing this foolish thing? Oh, you would have found, as I have found, that it is those things which come into our lives, not those which we by force _take_, which mean all ant them to mean! This wasn't _your child_!” Mrs Falconer's face softened as he had never seen it

”Nor yet is she the child of some woman you love Believe me, it would have made you far lonelier if it so happened--if you should ever come to love--if you ever had loved----”

Bulstrode interrupted her abruptly:

”Yes, in that case I should no doubt be glad that Sione back on ently, ”I _alad indeed!”

THE FOURTH ADVENTURE

IV

IN WHICH HE MAKES THREE PEOPLE HAPPY

There were times when Bulstrode decided that he never could see the woman he loved any more: there were times when he felt he must follow her to the ends of the world, just in order to assure hientleman's character and point of view, that she must always be serene, no ht be

He had the extraordinary idea that he could not himself be happy or make a woman happy over the dishonor of another man It was old-fashi+oned and unworldly of Bulstrode: still, that was the way he was constituted

It was on one of the imperious occasions when he felt as if he must follow her to the ends of the earth, that he steered his craft toward a little town on the edge of the Norman coast, to a very fashi+onable bit of France--Trouville As soon as he understood that Mrs Falconer was to be in Nors and ran down and put up at the Hotel de Paris On this occasion the gentleoal, and arrived at the watering-place before the others appeared Bulstrode took his own rooed the Falconers'

apartave on the heavenly blue sea, and with a nice fancy to in with, he filled it with flowersran what lengths he dared in putting a few rare vases and several pieces of old Italian damask here and there

”Falconer,” he consoled himself, ”will be too taken up with his horses to notice the _inside_ of anything but a stable! And I shall tell the others that the hotel proprietor is a collector: most of these Norrew, he went to greater lengths, with the curiosity shops on either side the Rue de Paris to tempt him The result was that when Mrs Falconer came, she found the hotel room wonderfully mellow and harmonious, and as a woman who revels in beauty she responded to its charlowed And Jih happiness as she looked at him and touched with her pretty hands the flowers he had hihtful moment, a moment that was much to him

The Falconers arrived with the usual lot of servants andoutfit, for Falconer had decided to enter his English filly, Bonjour, for the events of August There was also with the of nobility, the Marquis de Presle-Vaulx, to whom Bulstrode was a trifle paternal