purpose was mingled with a faint, ironic
scepticism, and tempered by a fine air of race.

He finished his tea; then he took a morocco case from his pocket, and
said to Germaine, "It must be quite three days since I gave you
anything."

He opened the case, disclosed a pearl pendant, and handed it to her.

"Oh, how nice!" she cried, taking it.

She took it from the case, saying that it was a beauty. She showed it
to Sonia; then she put it on and stood before a mirror admiring the
effect. To tell the truth, the effect was not entirely desirable. The
pearls did not improve the look of her rather coarse brown skin; and
her skin added nothing to the beauty of the pearls. Sonia saw this, and
so did the Duke. He looked at Sonia's white throat. She met his eyes
and blushed. She knew that the same thought was in both their minds;
the pearls would have looked infinitely better there.

Germaine finished admiring herself; she was incapable even of
suspecting that so expensive a pendant could not suit her perfectly.

The Duke said idly: "Goodness! Are all those invitations to the
wedding?"

"That's only down to the letter V," said Germaine proudly.

"And there are twenty-five letters in the alphabet! You must be
inviting the whole world. You'll have to have the Madeleine enlarged.
It won't hold them all. There isn't a church in Paris that will," said
the Duke.

"Won't it be a splendid marriage!" said Germaine. "There'll be
something like a crush. There are sure to be accidents."

"If I were you, I should have careful arrangements made," said the Duke.

"Oh, let people look after themselves. They'll remember it better if
they're crushed a little," said Germaine.

There was a flicker of contemptuous wonder in the Duke's eyes. But he
only shrugged his shoulders, and turning to Sonia, said, "Will you be
an angel and play me a little Grieg, Mademoiselle Kritchnoff? I heard
you playing yesterday. No one plays Grieg like you."

"Excuse me, Jacques, but Mademoiselle Kritchnoff has her work to do,"
said Germaine tartly.

"Five minutes' interval--just a morsel of Grieg, I beg," said the Duke,
with an irresistible smile.

"All right," said Germaine grudgingly. "But I've something important to
talk to you about."

"By Jove! So have I. I was forgetting. I've the last photograph I took
of you and Mademoiselle Sonia." Germaine frowned and shrugged her
shoulders. "With your light frocks in the open air, you look like two
big flo