low opposite, and she began
to wonder why he was so fascinating. Every turn of his head,
every gesture, every change in his face she knew now--knew so
well that she blushed at her own knowledge.

But she would not permit him to come nearer; she could not,
although she saw his disappointment, under a laugh, when she
refused to let him read the lines of fate in her rosy palm. Then
she wished she had laid her hand in his when he asked it, then
she wondered whether he thought her stupid, then--But it is
always the same, the gamut run of shy alarm, of tenderness, of
fear, of sudden love looking unbidden from eyes that answer love.
So the morning wore away.

The old vicomte came back with his wife and sat in the library
with them, playing chess until luncheon was served; and after
that Lorraine went away to embroider something or other that
Madame de Morteyn had for her up-stairs. A little later the
vicomte also went to take a nap, and Jack was left alone lying on
the lounge, too lonely to read, too unhappy to smoke, too lazy
to sleep.

He had been lying there for an hour thinking about Lorraine and
wondering whether she would ever be told what her exact relation
to the Marquis de Nesville was, when a maid brought him two
letters, postmarked Paris. One he saw at a glance was from his
sister, and, like a brother, he opened the other first.

"DEAR JACK,--I am very unhappy. Sir Thorald has gone off
to St. Petersburg in a huff, and, if he stops at
Morteyn, tell him he's a fool and that I want him to
come back. You're the only person on earth I can write
this to.

"Faithfully yours, MOLLY HESKETH."

Jack laughed aloud, then sat silent, frowning at the dainty bit
of letter-paper, crested and delicately fragrant. Yes, he could
read between the lines--a man in love is less dense than when in
his normal state--and he was sorry for Molly Hesketh. He thought
of Sir Thorald as Archibald Grahame had described him, standing
amid a shower of bricks and bursting shells, staring at war
through a monocle.

"He's a beast," thought Jack, "but a plucky one. If he goes to
Cologne he's worse than a beast." A vision of little Alixe came
before him, blond, tearful, gazing trustingly at Sir Thorald's
drooping mustache. It made him angry; he wished, for a moment,
that he had Sir Thorald by the neck. This train of thought led
him to think of Rickerl, and from Rickerl he naturally came to
the 11th Uhlans.

"By jingo