sion of mine. And I had a weird
feeling as if it were my bounden duty to see that this little girl
wasn't victimized by an unscrupulous woman. So I did what I could."

"I should think you did!" exclaimed the other. "I couldn't have done as
much. Poor Madame d'Ambre."

"Her real name's probably the French for Smith, without a 'de' in it,
unless it's to spell devil. If she's a widow, she's a grassy one. Her
game is to be found crying on the Casino terrace by moonlight,
preparatory to drinking poison, because she's tired of life and its
temptations. If it's a young lieutenant just off his ship for a flutter
at Monte, or some other lamb of that fleeciness, he's soon shorn.
There's quite a good living in it, I understand. She always contrives to
make the youngsters believe her an innocent angel, whom they must try to
save."

"But you seem to have been on in that act. Was it a moonlight scene?"

"Plenty of moonshine--and clear enough for me to see through the
angelhood to the designing minxhood. The poison was water, coloured, I
should think, with cochineal, and pleasantly flavoured with a little
bitter almond. But--well, one sees through people sometimes, as if they
were jelly-fish, and yet is a little sorry for them just because they
_are_ jelly-fish, stranded on the beach."

"I see," said Carleton.

They were spinning along the white way that winds between mountain and
sea, out of the principality, and so toward Cap Martin, Mentone, and on
to Italy. The tramcars had ceased to run; the endless daytime procession
of motor-cars and carriages was broken by the hours of sleep, and the
glimmering road was empty save for immense, white-covered carts which
had come from distant Lombardy, and over Alpine passes, bringing eggs
and vegetables for the guests of Hercules. Slowly, yet steadily,
shambled the tired mules, and would shamble on till dawn. There were
often no lights on the carts, which moved silently, like mammoth ghosts,
great lumbering vehicle after vehicle, each drawn by three or four mules
or horses. As the lamps of Schuyler's powerful car flashed on them
round sharp rock-corners, tearing the veil of shadow, they loomed up
unexpectedly in the night, like some mystery suddenly revealed in a
place of peace.

Schuyler liked motoring at night on the Riviera; for he never tired of
the dark forms of mountains, cut out black in the creamy foam of
star-spattered clouds, or the salt smell of the sea and its murmur,
singi