minal might have passed through their hands a dozen times
unmolested, while our poor innocent servants, and the strangers within
our gates, were made to feel that the stern eye of the law was upon
them night and day.'

The face of the young lady was an entrancing picture of animated
indignation as she gave utterance to this truism which her countrymen
are so slow to appreciate. I experienced a glow of satisfaction.

'Yes,' she went on, 'they sent down from London an army of stupid men,
who have kept our household in a state of abject terror for eight long
weeks, and where are the emeralds?'

As she suddenly asked this question, in the most Parisian of accents,
with a little outward spreading of the hand, a flash of the eye, and a
toss of the head, the united effect was something indescribable
through the limitations of the language I am compelled to use.

'Well, monsieur, your arrival has put to flight this tiresome brigade,
if, indeed, the word flight is not too airy a term to use towards a
company so elephantine, and I assure you a sigh of relief has gone up
from the whole household with the exception of my uncle. I said to him
at dinner tonight: "If Monsieur Valmont had been induced to take an
interest in the case at first, the jewels would have been in my
possession long before tonight."'

'Ah, my lady,' I protested, 'I fear you overrate my poor ability. It
is quite true that if I had been called in on the night of the
robbery, my chances of success would have been infinitely greater than
they are now.'

'Monsieur,' she cried, clasping her hands over her knees, and leaning
towards me, hypnotising me with those starry eyes, 'Monsieur, I am
perfectly confident that before a week is past you will restore the
necklace, if such restoration be possible. I have said so from the
first. Now, am I right in my conjecture, monsieur, that you come here
alone; that you bring with you no train of followers and assistants?'

'That is as you have stated it, my lady.'

'I was sure of it. It is to be a contest of trained mentality in
opposition to our two months' experience of brute force.'

Never before had I felt such ambition to succeed, and a determination
not to disappoint took full possession of me. Appreciation is a needed
stimulant, and here it was offered to me in its most intoxicating
form. Ah, Valmont, Valmont, will you never grow old! I am sure that
at this moment, if I had been eighty, the same thrill of enthusi