"He knew not what to say, and so he swore." That is why men swear often, and women seldom.
"I shall not leave you in London with that woman," said John, calmly. "You will go to her if I do."
"I shall do as I think fit," stammered Archie, striking the table with his slender white hand.
"There you err," said John. "You will start with me in half an hour for Paris."
CHAPTER XIII.
"There's not a crime
But takes its proper change out still in crime
If once rung on the counter of this world."
E. B. Browning.
THERE is in Paris, just out of the Rue du Bac, a certain old-fashioned hotel, the name of which I forget, with a little cour in the middle of the rambling old building, and a thin fountain perennially plashing therein, adorned by a few pigeons and feathers on the brink. It had been a very fashionable hotel in the days when Madame Mohl held her salon near at hand. But the old order changes. It was superseded now. Why John often went there I don't know. He probably did not know himself, unless it was for the sake of quiet. Anyhow, he and Archie arrived there together that morning; for it is needless to say that, having determined to get Archie at any cost out of London, John had carried his point, as he had done on previous occasions, to the disgust of the sulky young man, who had proved anything but a pleasant travelling companion, and who, late in the afternoon, was still invisible behind the white curtains in one of the two little bedrooms that opened out of the sitting-room in which John was walking up and down.