She did not look at him again until she was in a cab and Artois had told the driver to go to the Hotel Royal. Then she glanced at him with a strange expression of acute self-consciousness which he had never before seen on her face.
“You don’t believe that—that there is any danger to Vere?” she said, in a low voice. “You cannot believe that.”
“I don’t know.”
She leaned forward, and her face changed.
“Go and bring her back to me.”
The cabman drove off, and Artois was lost in the crowd.
He never knew how long his search lasted, how long he heard the swish and the bang of rockets, the vehement music of the band, the cries and laughter of the people, the sound of footsteps as if a world were starting on some pilgrimage; how long he saw the dazzling avenues of fire stretching away into the city’s heart; how long he looked at the faces of strangers, seeking Vere’s face. He was excessively conscious of almost everything except of time. It might have been two hours later, or much less, when he felt a hand upon his arm, turned round, and saw Gaspare beside him.
“Where is the Signora?”
“Gone to the hotel? And the Signorina?”
Gaspare looked at Artois with a sort of heavy gloom, then looked down to the ground.