Lilian, in a negligé, was somnolently stretched out in the easy chair in her room when Felix peeped in. He looked at her enquiringly in silence for a moment, and she gave him a hazy smile.
"Oh!" he said. "Then you won't feel like going into the Casino to-night after all?"
"Nothing to stop me," she replied, with a peculiar intonation, light and yet anxious.
"Hurrah!" exclaimed Felix very gaily, almost boyishly. "Then we'll go."
The apprehension which now for two days had been eating like a furtive cancer into her mind suddenly grew and contaminated the whole of her consciousness; she could not understand his levity, for she had not concealed from him the sinister misgiving.
"Yes!" she murmured with a sort of charming and victimized protest. "That's all very well, but----" And she stopped, and the smile expired from her face.
He shrugged his shoulders, gave a short, affectionate, humouring laugh, and said with kind superiority, utterly positive:
"What have I told you? The thing's absolutely imposs!"
And just as suddenly she was quite reassured and the apprehension vanished away. It could not exist against his perfect certitude. She lit up a new smile.
"Look here," he went on, "we'll dine in the Casino if we can. Of course, every blessed table may be booked, but I'll have a try."