ective, had
brought about a premature explosion of the train. To Indiman,
apologetic and remorseful, the Countess Gilda had vouchsafed a single
pregnant utterance--"Wait for the third appearance of the Queen of
Spades." This was his cue; let him make the most of it if he would
repair the mischief that he had unwittingly done.

Now the opera, on the night preceding the Countess's departure for
Europe, had been Tschaikowsky's "Queen of Spades"; the inference was
inevitable that here was the first materialization of our mysterious
heroine. That same evening we had encountered, at an Eighth Avenue
ball, a masker whose costume had been designed upon the familiar model
of the court-card in question; so much for number two. But Fortune had
been almost too kind, and immediately upon this promising beginning she
had withdrawn her smiles. For upward of a month nothing whatever had
happened. As I have said, Indiman played solitaire and I smoked as much
as I could. Dull work for all that it was the end of April, the height
of the Easter season, and New York was at its gayest. A brilliant
show--yes, and the same old one. Did you ever eat a quail a day for
thirty days? Why not for three hundred or three thousand days,
supposing that one is really fond of quail?

For the thirty-fifth consecutive time the solitaire failed to come out.
Indiman gathered the cards, shuffled them with infinite precision, and
handed them to me to cut. I did so. Indiman took the pack and flung it
into the air; the cards fluttered in all directions, and one came
sailing straight for my nose. I put up my hand and caught it--it was
the Queen of Spades.

"Here is the lady for the fateful third time," I remarked, jestingly.
But Indiman was nothing if not serious. He took the card from me and
studied it attentively.

"Rather an interesting face, don't you think?" he said, musingly.
"Somewhat Semitic in physiognomy, you notice; that comes from the
almond-shaped eyes and the abnormally high arch of the brows. Would you
know her in the actual flesh--say, on Broadway? Brunette, of course,
jet-black hair banded a la Merode over the ears, a little droop at the
corners of her mouth. Voila! The Queen of Spades. Let us go out and
look for her."

"A proposition," I remarked, judicially, "that savors of the rankest
lunacy. And yet, why not? The lady certainly made the advances; it is
an equivalent to an invitation to call. Pity she doesn't put her
address on her card.