hough, as he caught her gaze on the palette, his
own eyes took on something of anxiety and foreboding.

"Does he sign his pictures now?" she asked abruptly.

"No. Why?"

"It looked--almost," she said wearily, "as though the signature had
been painted out there at the corner."

For an instant, St. John eyed his daughter with keen intentness.

"The canvas was scraped in shipping," he said, at last. "I touched up
the spot where the paint was rubbed."

For a time, both were silent. The father saw that two hectic spots
glowed on the girl's bloodless cheeks, and that her eyes, fixed on the
picture, wore a deeply wistful longing.

He, too, knew that this picture was a declaration of love, that in her
silence she was torturing herself with the thought that these other
eyes had stirred the heart that had remained closed to her. He did not
want to admit to her that this was not a genuine Marston; yet, he
faltered a moment, and resolved that he could not, even for so
necessary a deception, let her suffer.

"That portrait, my child," he confessed slowly, "was not painted
by--by him. It's by another artist, a lesser man, named Saxon."

Into the deep-set eyes surged a look of incredulous, but vast, relief.
The frail shoulders drew back from their shallow-chested sag, and the
thin lips smiled.

"Doesn't he sign his pictures, either?" she demanded, finally.

For an instant, St. John hesitated awkwardly for an explanation.

"Yes," he said at last, a little lamely. "This canvas was cut down for
framing, and the signature was thrown so close to the edge that the
frame conceals the name." He paused, then added, quietly: "I have kept
my promise of silence, but now--do you want to hear of _him_?"

She looked up--then shook her head, resolutely.

"No," she said.

CHAPTER XVI

Late one evening in the cafe beneath the Elysee Palace Hotel, a tall
man of something like thirty-five, though aged to the seeming of a bit
more, sat over his brandy and soda and the perusal of a packet of
letters. He wore traveling dress, and, though the weather had hardly
the bitterness to warrant it, a fur-trimmed great-coat fell across the
empty chair at his side. It was not yet late enough for the gayety
that begins with midnight, and the place was consequently uncrowded.
The stranger had left a taxicab at the door a few minutes before, and,
without following his luggage into the office, he had gone directly to
the cafe, to glance over hi