e was plainly
engrossed in the pleasant pastime of conversing with her. Chris began to
give him more of her attention. No, she certainly did not like the man.
His sneer and his self-assurance disturbed her. He made her uncomfortably
conscious of her own youth and inexperience. She almost felt as if he
were playing with her.

He talked at some length upon roses, a subject upon which he seemed to be
well informed, listened tolerantly to any remarks she made, and finally
conducted her to a long shrubbery that led back to the lawn.

As they entered this, he lightly wound up the thread of his discourse and
broke it off. "I have been wondering for long," he said, "where it was
that I had seen you before. Now I remember."

She turned a startled face towards him. He was smiling with extreme
complacence, but there was to her something sinister, something even
threatening, about the bushy brows that shadowed his gleaming eyes. He
put her in mind of a carrion-crow searching for treasures on a heap of
refuse.

The impulse to deny all knowledge of him seized her--a blind impulse,
blindly followed. "I think you must be mistaken," she said.

"How?" he ejaculated. "You do not remember Valpre--and what happened
there?"

She saw her mistake on the instant, and hastened to cover it. "Valpre!"
she said, frowning a little. "Yes, I remember Valpre, though it is years
since I was there. But you--did I meet you at Valpre, Captain Rodolphe?"

He bowed with a gallantry that seemed to her exaggerated. "Only once,
madame, but that once was enough to stamp you ineffaceably upon my
memory. It was, in fact, a memorable occasion. And I forget--never!"
Again with _empressement_ he bowed. "And still you do not remember me?"
he said.

There was a mocking glint in his eyes. It was as though with a smile he
weighed her resistance, displaying it to herself as a quantity wholly
negligible.

"I think you begin to remember now," he suggested.

And quite suddenly Chris saw what he had with subtlety set about teaching
her, that to attempt to fence with him was useless.

"Yes, I remember," she said, and there was a hint of most unwonted malice
in her capitulation. "Didn't I see you wounded in a duel?"

He smiled, and she saw his teeth. "If my memory be correct it was to
madame herself that I owed that wound."

She felt the quick blood rush to her face. He had spoken with _double
entendre_, but she did not perceive it until too late. She only
reme