on her lips. As they got up to go out she threw a glance at Petrovitch, and left the room, still with that trancelike smile. It irritated Noel beyond expression. It plainly said:
"He is not indifferent to me. He has forgotten nothing. I shall live again."
Very little was said on the way to Connie's hotel. She was beyond speech for the present—she was reliving the days when the world was at Petrovitch's feet, and he, the master, was at hers. For she believed now that it was the depth and tumult of his passion for her that had carried her away. She had forgotten her notes, her flowers, the interviews she had prayed for—forgotten all that. She won him by deliberate assault, but once won, she became his slave, and it was as his adoring slave in those first, brief, happy months, that she liked to remember herself.
Noel was disgusted and annoyed. Also, he was extremely disappointed. Was all his scolding, his chaffing, his affection for her, the influence he had gained, to go for nothing now? Simply because that . . . brute . . . had turned up again? Was there nothing he could say or do to save her? What would Claire say? And then he asked himself, well, what would Claire say? Why not find out? That was an idea. He would find out.
