thly sounds began to come back to drown the
delicious voice in his ears; he heard the little river Lisse,
flowing, flowing under green branches; he heard a throstle
singing in the summer wind; he heard, far in the deeper forest,
something passing--patter, patter, patter--over the dead leaves.

II

TELEGRAMS FOR TWO

Jack Marche tucked his gun under his arm and turned away along
the overgrown wood-road that stretched from the De Nesville
forests to the more open woods of Morteyn.

He walked slowly, puffing his pipe, pondering over his encounter with
the chatelaine of the Chateau de Nesville. He thought, too, of the old
Vicomte de Morteyn and his gentle wife, of the little house-party of
which he and his sister Dorothy made two, of Sir Thorald and Lady
Hesketh, their youthful and totally irresponsible chaperons on the
journey from Paris to Morteyn.

"They're lunching on the Lisse," he thought. "I'll not get a bite
if Ricky is there."

When Madame de Morteyn wrote to Sir Thorald and Lady Hesketh on
the first of July, she asked them to chaperon her two nieces and
some other pretty girls in the American colony whom they might
wish to bring, for a month, to Morteyn.

"The devil!" said Sir Thorald when he read the letter; "am I to
pick out the girls, Molly?"

"Betty and I will select the men," said Lady Hesketh, sweetly;
"you may do as you please."

He did. He suggested a great many, and wrote a list for his wife.
That prudent young woman carefully crossed out every name, saying,
"Thorald! I am ashamed of you!" and substituted another list. She
had chosen, besides Dorothy Marche and Betty Castlemaine, the two
nieces in question, Barbara Lisle and her inseparable little German
friend, Alixe von Elster; also the latter's brother, Rickerl, or
Ricky, as he was called in diplomatic circles. She closed the list
with Cecil Page, because she knew that Betty Castlemaine, Madame
de Morteyn's younger niece, looked kindly, at times, upon this
blond giant.

And so it happened that the whole party invaded three first-class
compartments of an east-bound train at the Gare de l'Est, and
twenty-two hours later were trooping up the terrace steps of the
Chateau Morteyn, here in the forests and fragrant meadows of
Lorraine.

Madame de Morteyn kissed all the girls on both cheeks, and the
old vicomte embraced his nieces, Betty Castlemaine and Dorothy
Marche, and threatened to kiss the others, including Molly
Hesketh. He des