ew asked, "why he was willing in the first
instance to come to Paris in search of you?"

"No," she answered. "Wasn't it because he was your friend?"

He shook his head.

"It is his affair, not mine," he said with a sigh. "Ask him some day."

"You won't tell me, Andrew?"

"No! I will go now! You know where to send for me if you should need
help. I can find my way down, thank you. I have a guide from the hotel
outside."

The Marquise swept into the room as he passed out, an impression of
ermine and laces and perfume.

"Another of your English lovers, _ma belle_?" she asked.

"Scarcely that," Phyllis answered. "He is a very old friend, and he was
rather hard to get rid of."

"I think," the Marquise said, "you would get rid of all very willingly
for the sake of one, eh?"

The Marquise stared insolently into the girl's face. Phyllis only
laughed.

"One is usually considered the ideal number--in our country," she
remarked demurely.

"But the one?" the Marquise continued. "He would not be one of these
cold, heavy countrymen of yours, no? You have learnt better perhaps over
here?"

It was a cross-examination, but Phyllis could not imagine its drift.

"I have not had very much opportunity over here, have I, to amend my
ideals?" she asked. "I think the only two Frenchmen I have met are the
Marquis and that languid young man with the green tie, the Vicomte de
Bergillac, wasn't it?"

The Marquise watched her charge closely.

"Well," she said, "he is _comme il faut_, is he not? You find him more
elegant, more chic than your Englishmen, eh?"

Phyllis shook her head regretfully.

"To me," she admitted, "he seemed like an exceedingly precocious spoilt
child!"

"He is twenty-three," the Marquise declared.

Phyllis laughed softly.

"Well," she said, "I do not think that I shall amend my ideals for the
sake of the Vicomte de Bergillac!"

The Marquise looked at her doubtfully.

"Tell me, child," she said, "you mean, then, that of the two--your
English Sir George Duncombe and Henri--you would prefer Sir George?"

Phyllis looked at her with twinkling eyes.

"You would really like to know?" she asked.

"Yes!"

"Sir George Duncombe--infinitely!"

The Marquise seemed to have recovered her good spirits.

"Come, little one," she said, "you lose color in the house. I will take
you for a drive!"

* * * * *

Andrew, conscious that he was being followed, sat down outside a cafe