, but we nevertheless risk it,
that in spite of this circumstance she probably saw every movement
of his little finger. Young Madame de Bellegarde was dressed in an
audacious toilet of crimson crape, bestrewn with huge silver moons--thin
crescent and full disks.

"You don't say anything about my dress," she said to Newman.

"I feel," he answered, "as if I were looking at you through a telescope.
It is very strange."

"If it is strange it matches the occasion. But I am not a heavenly
body."

"I never saw the sky at midnight that particular shade of crimson," said
Newman.

"That is my originality; any one could have chosen blue. My
sister-in-law would have chosen a lovely shade of blue, with a dozen
little delicate moons. But I think crimson is much more amusing. And I
give my idea, which is moonshine."

"Moonshine and bloodshed," said Newman.

"A murder by moonlight," laughed Madame de Bellegarde. "What a delicious
idea for a toilet! To make it complete, there is the silver dagger, you
see, stuck into my hair. But here comes Lord Deepmere," she added in a
moment. "I must find out what he thinks of it." Lord Deepmere came up,
looking very red in the face, and laughing. "Lord Deepmere can't decide
which he prefers, my sister-in-law or me," said Madame de Bellegarde.
"He likes Claire because she is his cousin, and me because I am not.
But he has no right to make love to Claire, whereas I am perfectly
disponible. It is very wrong to make love to a woman who is engaged, but
it is very wrong not to make love to a woman who is married."

"Oh, it's very jolly making love to married women," said Lord Deepmere,
"because they can't ask you to marry them."

"Is that what the others do, the spinsters?" Newman inquired.

"Oh dear, yes," said Lord Deepmere; "in England all the girls ask a
fellow to marry them."

"And a fellow brutally refuses," said Madame de Bellegarde.

"Why, really, you know, a fellow can't marry any girl that asks him,"
said his lordship.

"Your cousin won't ask you. She is going to marry Mr. Newman."

"Oh, that's a very different thing!" laughed Lord Deepmere.

"You would have accepted HER, I suppose. That makes me hope that after
all you prefer me."

"Oh, when things are nice I never prefer one to the other," said the
young Englishman. "I take them all."

"Ah, what a horror! I won't be taken in that way; I must be kept apart,"
cried Madame de Bellegarde. "Mr. Newman is much better; he knows