Page:The King in Yellow (1895).djvu/284

272 creel a defunct chub, which, he observed, just missed being a trout.

They were all very merry at luncheon and Hastings was voted “charming.” He enjoyed it immensly,—only it seemed to him at moments that flirtation went further in France than in Millbrook, Connecticut, and he thought that Cécile might be a little less enthusiastic about Clifford, that perhaps it would be quite as well if Jacqueline sat further away from Rowden and that possibly Colette could have, for a moment, at least, taken her eyes from Elliot’s face. Still he enjoyed it—except when his thoughts drifted to Valentine and then he felt that he was very far away from her. La Roche is at least an hour and a half from Paris. It is also true that he felt a happiness, a quick heart-beat when, at eight o’clock that night the train which bore them from La Roche rolled into the Gare St. Lazare and he was once more in the city of Valentine.

“Good-night,” they said, pressing around him. “You must come with us next time!”

He promised, and watched them, two by two, drift into the darkening city, and stood so long that, when again he raised his eyes, the vast Boulevard was twinkling with gas-jets through which the electric lights stared like moons.