When they reached Paris Nicole was too tired to go on to the grand illumination at the Decorative Art Exposition as they had planned. They left her at the Hotel Roi George, and as she disappeared between the intersecting planes made by lobby lights of the glass doors, Rosemary’s oppression lifted. Nicole was a force — not necessarily well disposed or predictable like her mother — an incalculable force. Rosemary was somewhat afraid of her.

At eleven she sat with Dick and the Norths at a houseboat café just opened on the Seine. The river shimmered with lights from the bridges and cradled many cold moons. On Sundays sometimes when Rosemary and her mother had lived in Paris they had taken the little steamer up to Suresnes and talked about plans for the future. They had little money but Mrs. Speers was so sure of Rosemary’s beauty and had implanted in her so much ambition, that she was willing to gamble the money on “advantages”; Rosemary in turn was to repay her mother when she got her start . . . .

Since reaching Paris Abe North had had a thin vinous fur over him; his eyes were bloodshot from sun and wine. Rosemary realized for the first time that he was always stopping in places to get a drink, and she wondered how Mary North liked it. Mary was quiet, so quiet save for her frequent laughter that Rosemary had learned little about her. She liked the straight dark hair brushed back until it met some sort of natural cascade that took care of it — from time to time it eased with a jaunty slant over the corner of her temple, until it was almost in her eye when she tossed her head and caused it to fall sleek into place once more.

“We’ll turn in early to-night, Abe, after this drink.” Mary’s voice was light but it held a little flicker of anxiety. “You don’t want to be poured on the boat.”

“It’s pretty late now,” Dick said. “We’d all better go.”

The noble dignity of Abe’s face took on a certain stubbornness, and he remarked with determination:

“Oh, no.” He paused gravely. “Oh, no, not yet. We’ll have another bottle of champagne.”

“No more for me,” said Dick.

“It’s Rosemary I’m thinking of. She’s a natural alcoholic — keeps a bottle of gin in the bathroom and all that — her mother told me.”

He emptied what was left of the first bottle into Rosemary’s glass. She had made herself quite sick the first day in Paris with quarts of lemonade; after that she had taken nothing with them but now she raised the champagne and drank at it.

“But what’s this?” exclaimed Dick. “You told me you didn’t drink.”

“I didn’t say I was never going to.”

“What about your mother?”

“I’m just going to drink this one glass.” She felt some necessity for it. Dick drank, not too much, but he drank, and perhaps it would bring her closer to him, be a part of the equipment for what she had to do. She drank............