"I CANNOT GO!"
Hunterleys stood for several minutes, watching his wife's play from a new point of view. She was certainly playing high and with continued ill-fortune. For the first time, too, he noticed symptoms which disturbed him. She sat quite motionless, but there was an unfamiliar glitter in her eyes and a hardness about her mouth. It was not until he had stood within a few feet of her for nearly a quarter of an hour, that she chanced to see him.
"Did you want me?" she asked, with a little start.
"There is no hurry," he replied. "If you could spare me a few moments later, I should be glad."
She rose at once, thrusting her notes and gold into the satchel which she was carrying, and stood by his side. She was very elegantly dressed in black and white, but she was pale, and, watching her with a new intentness, he discovered faint violet lines under her eyes, as though she had been sleeping ill.
"I am rather glad you came," she said. "I was having an abominable run of bad luck, and yet I hated to give up my seat without an excuse. What did you want, Henry?"
"I should like," he explained, "to talk to you for a quarter of an hour. This place is rather crowded and it is getting on my nerves. We seem to live here, night and day. Would you object to driving with me—say as far as Mentone and back?"
"I will come if you wish it," she answered, looking a little surprised. "Wait while I get my cloak."
Hunterleys hired an automobile below and they drove off. As soon as they were out of the main street, he thrust his hand into the breast-pocket of his coat and smoothed out that half-sheet of notepaper upon his knee.
"Violet," he said, "please read that."