mand well, who could talk of all the merry, brilliant friends whom
she had left behind. So she lingered on under the pretty porch, while
through the gaily-lighted dormer-window of the coffee-room sounds of
laughter, of calls for "Sally" and for beer, of tapping of mugs, and
clinking of dice, mingled with Sir Percy Blakeney's inane and mirthless
laugh. Chauvelin stood beside her, his shrewd, pale, yellow eyes fixed
on the pretty face, which looked so sweet and childlike in this soft
English summer twilight.

"You surprise me, citoyenne," he said quietly, as he took a pinch of
snuff.

"Do I now?" she retorted gaily. "Faith, my little Chauvelin, I should
have thought that, with your penetration, you would have guessed that an
atmosphere composed of fogs and virtues would never suit Marguerite St.
Just."

"Dear me! is it as bad as that?" he asked, in mock consternation.

"Quite," she retorted, "and worse."

"Strange! Now, I thought that a pretty woman would have found English
country life peculiarly attractive."

"Yes! so did I," she said with a sigh, "Pretty women," she added
meditatively, "ought to have a good time in England, since all the
pleasant things are forbidden them--the very things they do every day."

"Quite so!"

"You'll hardly believe it, my little Chauvelin," she said earnestly,
"but I often pass a whole day--a whole day--without encountering a
single temptation."

"No wonder," retorted Chauvelin, gallantly, "that the cleverest woman in
Europe is troubled with ENNUI."

She laughed one of her melodious, rippling, childlike laughs.

"It must be pretty bad, mustn't it?" she asked archly, "or I should not
have been so pleased to see you."

"And this within a year of a romantic love match . . . that's just the
difficulty . . ."

"Ah! . . . that idyllic folly," said Chauvelin, with quiet sarcasm, "did
not then survive the lapse of . . . weeks?"

"Idyllic follies never last, my little Chauvelin . . . They come upon us
like the measles . . . and are as easily cured."

Chauvelin took another pinch of snuff: he seemed very much addicted
to that pernicious habit, so prevalent in those days; perhaps, too, he
found the taking of snuff a convenient veil for disguising the quick,
shrewd glances with which he strove to read the very souls of those with
whom he came in contact.

"No wonder," he repeated, with the same gallantry, "that the most active
brain in Europe is troubled with ENNUI."

"I was in