sent
he loses confidence, like a cur when a thoroughbred terrier is about. He
dislikes you. I should take care to give M. de Chauxville a wide berth
if I were you, Paul."

She had risen, after glancing at the clock. She turned down the page of
her book, and looking up suddenly, met his eyes, for a moment only.

"We are not likely to drop into a close friendship," said Paul. "But--he
is coming to Thors, twenty miles from Osterno."

There was a momentary look of anxiety in the girl's eyes, which she
turned away to hide.

"I am sorry for that," she said. "Does Herr Steinmetz know it?"

"Not yet."

Maggie paused for a moment. She was tracing with the tip of her finger a
pattern stamped on the binding of the book. It would seem that she had
something more to say. Then suddenly she went away without saying it.

In the meantime Claude de Chauxville had gently led the Countess
Lanovitch to invite him to stay to dinner. He accepted the invitation
with becoming reluctance, and returned to the Hotel de Berlin, where he
was staying, in order to dress. He was fully alive to the expediency of
striking while the iron is hot--more especially where women are
concerned. Moreover, his knowledge of the countess led him to fear that
she would soon tire of his society. This lady had a lamentable facility
for getting to the bottom of her friends' powers of entertainment within
a few days. It was De Chauxville's intention to make secure his
invitation to Thors, and then to absent himself from the countess.

At dinner he made himself vastly agreeable, recounting many anecdotes
fresh from Paris, which duly amused the Countess Lanovitch, and somewhat
shocked Catrina, who was not advanced or inclined to advance.

After dinner the guest asked Mlle. Catrina to play. He opened the grand
piano in the inner drawing-room with such gallantry and effusion that
the sanguine countess, post-prandially somnolescent in her luxurious
chair, began rehearsing different modes of mentioning her son-in-law,
the baron.

"Yes," she muttered to herself, "and Catrina is plain--terribly plain."

Thereupon she fell asleep.

De Chauxville had a good memory, and was, moreover, a good and capable
liar. So Catrina did not find out that he knew nothing whatever of
music. He watched the plain face as the music rose and fell, himself
impervious to its transcendent tones. With practised cunning he waited
until Catrina was almost intoxicated with music--an intoxicati