e a flower in fresh water. Nothing can revive
me. You see, I look facts in the face."

"Could one not make facts pleasant to see, if one must look them in the
face?" Mary ventured, gently.

"I'm sure you will make them so for Madame," said Hannaford.

"It is only those who are very happy, or very miserable, who can joke
forever, as you do," said Madame d'Ambre. "I can understand you now, or
I could, at my worst. But for the moment I have new life. I try to
forget the future."

As they ate a delicious and well-chosen supper she revived, delicately,
and regarded her misfortunes from a distance. "To think, if I had not
met you all, and if I had kept my resolve," she said, "by now I should
have found out the great secret."

As she spoke, a tall, thin man came to the table, and laid his hand on
Dick Carleton's shoulder. So doing, he stood looking straight into
Madame d'Ambre's face. She started a little, and blushed deeply. Blushes
were a great stock-in-trade with Madame d'Ambre. They proved that,
unlike Clotilde et Cie., she did not paint her face: that she was
altogether a different order of being. But this blush was less
successful than usual. It was a flush of annoyance, and showed that she
was vexed.

The man was more American in type than Carleton, though indefinably so.
If a critic had been asked how he would know this person to be a New
Yorker, even if met wrapped in bearskins at the North Pole, he might
have been at a loss to explain. Nevertheless, the dark face with its
twinkling, heavily black-lashed blue eyes, its short, wavy black hair
turning gray at the temples, its prominent nose and chin, lips and jaws
slightly aggressive in their firmness, was the distilled essence of New
York. So were the strong, lean figure, and the nervous, virile hands.

"Hello, Jim!" exclaimed Carleton, turning quickly at the touch on his
shoulder. "I've only played with a dish or two. I was waiting for you,
really." He got up, and rather shyly introduced the party to his host of
the celebrated Stellamare.

"I have the pleasure of knowing this lady slightly, already," said
Schuyler, still fixing Madeleine with his straight, disconcerting gaze.

"Madame d'Ambre?"

"I don't think we knew each other's name. I had the honour of doing a
small--a very small--service for Madame, such a service as any man may
be allowed to do for a lady at Monte Carlo."

If he laid an emphasis on the last two words, it was hardly strong
enough to