Nicole awoke late, murmuring something back into her dream before she parted her long lashes tangled with sleep. Dick’s bed was empty — only after a minute did she realize that she had been awakened by a knock at their salon door.

“Entrez!” she called, but there was no answer, and after a moment she slipped on a dressing-gown and went to open it. A sergent-de- ville confronted her courteously and stepped inside the door.

“Mr. Afghan North — he is here?”

“What? No — he’s gone to America.”

“When did he leave, Madame?”

“Yesterday morning.”

He shook his head and waved his forefinger at her in a quicker rhythm.

“He was in Paris last night. He is registered here but his room is not occupied. They told me I had better ask at this room.”

“Sounds very peculiar to me — we saw him off yesterday morning on the boat train.”

“Be that as it may, he has been seen here this morning. Even his carte d’identité has been seen. And there you are.”

“We know nothing about it,” she proclaimed in amazement.

He considered. He was an ill-smelling, handsome man.

“You were not with him at all last night?”

“But no.”

“We have arrested a Negro. We are convinced we have at last arrested the correct Negro.”

“I assure you that I haven’t an idea what you’re talking about. If it’s the Mr. Abraham North, the one we know, well, if he was in Paris last night we weren’t aware of it.”

The man nodded, sucked his upper lip, convinced but disappointed.

“What happened?” Nicole demanded.

He showed his palms, puffing out his closed mouth. He had begun to find her attractive and his eyes flickered at her.

“What do you wish, Madame? A summer affair. Mr. Afghan North was robbed and he made a complaint. We have arrested the miscreant. Mr. Afghan should come to identify him and make the proper charges.”

Nicole pulled her dressing-gown closer around her and dismissed him briskly. Mystified she took a bath and dressed. By this time it was after ten and she called Rosemary but got no answer — then she phoned the hotel office and found that Abe had indeed registered, at six-thirty this morning. His room, however, was still unoccupied. Hoping for a word from Dick she waited in the parlor of the suite; just as she had given up and decided to go out, the office called and announced:

“Meestaire Crawshow, un nègre.”

“On what business?” she demanded.

“He says he knows you and the doctaire. He says there is a Meestaire Freeman into prison that is a friend of all the world. He says there is injustice and he wishes to see Meestaire North before he himself is arrested.”

“We know nothing about it.” Nicole disclaimed the whole business with a vehement clap of the receiver. Abe’s bizarre reappearance made it plain to her how fatigued she was with his dissipation. Dismissing him from her mind she went out, ran into Rosemary at the dressmaker’s, and shopped with her for artificial flowers and all- colored strings of colored beads on the Rue de Rivoli. She helped Rosemary choose a diamond for her mother, and some scarfs and novel cigarette cases to take home to business associates in California. For her son she bought Greek and Roman soldiers, a whole army of them, costing over a thousand francs. Once again they spent their money in different ways and again Rosemary admired Nicole’s method of spending. Nicole was sure that the money she spent was hers — Rosemary still thought her money was miraculously lent to her and she must consequently be very careful of it.

It was fun spending money in the sunlight of the foreign city with healthy bodies under them that sent streams of color up to their faces; with arms and hands, legs and ankles that they stretched out confidently, reaching or stepping with the confidence of women lovely to men.

When they got back to the hotel and found Dick, all bright and new in the morning, both of them had a moment of complete childish joy.

He had just received a garbled telephone call from Abe who, so it appeared, had spent the forenoon in hiding.

“It was one of the most extraordinary telephone conversations I’ve ever held.”

Dick had talked not only to Abe but to a dozen others. On the phone these supernumeraries had been typically introduced as: “— man wants to talk to you is in the teput dome, well he says he was in it — what is it?

“Hey, somebody, shut-up — anyhow, he was in some shandel-scandal and he kaa POS-sibly go home. My own PER-sonal is that — my personal is he’s had a —” Gulps sounded and thereafter what the party had, rested with the unknown.

The phone yielded up a supplementary offer:

“I thought it would appeal to you anyhow as a psychologist.” The vague personality who corresponded to this statement was eventually hung on to the phone; in the sequence he failed to appeal to Dick, as a psychologist, or indeed as anything else. Abe’s conversation flowed on as follows:

“Hello.”

“Well?”

“Well, hello.”

“Who are you?”

“Well.” There were interpolated snorts of laughter.

“Well, I’ll put ............