He clinched his jaws against the words that surged to his lips.
"If we could leave those last few weeks just as they were—" he said. "Can't we call that evening I met you in Paris the beginning, and the day we reached Nice the end?"
"Only there is no end," she cried.
"Let the day we reached the Hôtel des Roses be the end. I should like to go away feeling that the whole incident up to then was something detached from the rest of our lives."
"You're going—where?" she gasped.
He tried to smile.
"I 'll have to pick up my schedule again."
"You're going—when?"
"In a day or two now," he replied. "You see—it's necessary for me to desert you."
"Monte!"