'

'To-morrow morning.'

I made up my mind at once. 'Then I must see him, without being seen,' I
said. 'I think I know him. He is our Count, I believe.' For I had told
Mrs. Evelegh and Elsie the queer story of my journey from London.

'Impossible, my dear! Im-possible! I have implicit faith in him!'

'Wait and see, Mrs. Evelegh. You acknowledge he duped you over the
affair of the bangle.'

[Illustration: THE COUNT.]

There are two kinds of dupe: one kind, the commonest, goes on believing
in its deceiver, no matter what happens; the other, far rarer, has the
sense to know it has been deceived if you make the deception as clear as
day to it. Mrs. Evelegh was, fortunately, of the rarer class. Next
morning, Dr. Fortescue-Langley arrived, by appointment. As he walked up
the path, I glanced at him from my window. It was the Count, not a doubt
of it. On his way to gull his dupes in Switzerland, he had tried to
throw in an incidental trifle of a diamond robbery.

I telegraphed the facts at once to Lady Georgina, at Schlangenbad. She
answered, 'I am coming. Ask the man to meet his friend on Wednesday.'

Mrs. Evelegh, now almost convinced, invited him. On Wednesday morning,
with a bounce, Lady Georgina burst in upon us. 'My dear, such a
journey!--alone, at my age--but there, I haven't known a happy day since
you left me! Oh, yes, I got my Gretchen--unsophisticated?--
well--h'm--that's not the word for it: I declare to you, Lois, there
isn't a trick of the trade, in Paris or London--not a perquisite or a
tip that that girl isn't up to. Comes straight from the remotest
recesses of the Black Forest, and hadn't been with me a week, I assure
you, honour bright, before she was bandolining her yellow hair, and
rouging her cheeks, and wearing my brooches, and wagering gloves with
the hotel waiters upon the Baden races. _And_ her language: _and_ her
manners! Why weren't you born in that station of life, I wonder, child,
so that I might offer you five hundred a year, and all found, to come
and live with me for ever? But this Gretchen--her fringe, her shoes, her
ribbons--upon my soul, my dear, I don't know what girls are coming to
nowadays.'

'Ask Mrs. Lynn-Linton,' I suggested, as she paused. 'She is a recognised
authority on the subject.'

The Cantankerous Old Lady stared at me. 'And this Count?' she went on.
'So you have really tracked him? You're a wonderful girl, my dear. I
wish you were a lady's maid. You'd be worth me any