"By a motor-car of some sort, creeping along without lights, probably one of the private cars that were waiting when we came out."
"I have a pistol, if you need one," Athenais offered, matter-of-fact.
"Then you were more sensible than I."
Lanyard held a thoughtful silence for some minutes, while the cab jogged sedately down the rue St. Lazare, then had another look back through the little window.
"No mistake about that," he reported; and bending forward began to peer intently right and left into the dark throats of several minor streets they passed after leaving the Hôtel Terminus behind and heading down the rue de la Pépinière. "The deuce of it is," he complained, "this inhuman loneliness! If there were only something like a crowd in the streets as there must have been earlier in the evening..."
"What are you thinking of, monsieur?"
"But naturally of ridding you of an embarrassing and perhaps dangerous companion."
"If you mean you're planning to jump down and run for it," Athenais replied, "you're a fool. You'll not get far with a motor car pursuing you and sergents de ville abnormally on the qui vive because the crime wave that followed demobilisation as yet shows no signs of subsiding."
"But, mademoiselle, it makes me so unhappy to have any shadow but my own."
"Then rest tranquil here with me. It isn't much farther to my apartment."