CHAPTER IV.
IVOR TRAVELS TO PARIS It is rather a startling sensation for a man to be caught suddenly by the nape of the neck, so to speak, and pitched out of heaven down to--the other place.
But that was what happened to me when I arrived at Victoria Station, on my way to Paris.
I had taken my ticket and hurried on to the platform without too much time to spare (I'd been warned not to risk observation by being too early) when I came face to face with the girl whom, at any other time, I should have liked best to meet: whom at that particular time I least wished to meet: Diana Forrest.
"The Imp"-- Lisa Drummond--was with her: but I saw only Di at first--Di, looking a little pale and harassed, but beautiful as always.

Only last night I had told her that Paris had no attractions for me.

I had said that I didn't care to see Maxine de Renzie: yet here I was on the way to see her, and here was Di discovering me in the act of going to see, her.
Of course I could lie; and I suppose some men, even men of honour, would think it justifiable as well as wise to lie in such a case, when explanations were forbidden.

But I couldn't lie to a girl I loved as I love Diana Forrest.

It would have sickened me with life and with myself to do it: and it was with the knowledge in my mind that I could not and would not lie, that I had to greet her with a conventional "Good morning." "Are you going out of town ?" I asked, with my hat off for her and for the Imp, whose strange little weazened face I now saw looking over my tall love's shoulders.