. I think that the fairies
must have poured into my blood the joy of living for its own sake. I
should be an ungrateful woman indeed, if I found anything to complain
of, nowadays. Yet there is one thing that troubles me," she went on,
after a moment's pause.

"And that?" he asked.

"The danger," she said, slowly. "I do not want to lose you, Peter. There
are times when I am afraid."

De Grost flicked the ash from his cigarette.

"The days are passing," he remarked, "when men point revolvers at one
another, and hire assassins to gain their ends. Now, it is more a battle
of wits. We play chess on the board of Life still, but we play with
ivory pieces instead of steel and poison. Our brains direct and not our
muscles."

She sighed.

"It is only the one man of whom I am afraid. You have outwitted him so
often and he does not forgive."

De Grost smiled. It was an immense compliment--this.

"Bernadine," he murmured, softly, "otherwise, our friend the Count von
Hern."

"Bernadine!" she repeated. "All that you say is true, but when one fails
with modern weapons, one changes the form of attack. Bernadine at heart
is a savage."

"The hate of such a man," De Grost remarked complacently, "is worth
having. He has had his own way over here for years. He seems to
have found the knack of living in a maze of intrigue and remaining
untouchable. There were a dozen things before I came upon the scene
which ought to have ruined him. Yet there never appeared to be anything
to take hold of. Even the Criminal Department once thought they had a
chance. I remember John Dory telling me in disgust that Bernadine was
like one of those marvelous criminals one only reads about in fiction,
who seem, when they pass along the dangerous places, to walk upon the
air, and, leave no trace behind."

"Before you came," she said, "he had never known a failure. Do you think
that he is a man likely to forgive?"

"I do not," De Grost answered grimly. "It is a battle, of course, a
battle all the time. Yet, Violet, between you and me, if Bernadine were
to go, half the savor of life for me would depart with him."

Then there came a curious and wholly unexpected interruption. A man in
dark, plain clothes, still wearing his overcoat, and carrying a bowler
hat, had been standing in the entrance of the restaurant for a moment or
two, looking around the room as though in search of some one. At last he
caught the eye of the Baron de Grost and came quickly