foreigner, and most of what he says, well, it
reelly sounds like swearing.

"Madame." It was Gaston himself, appearing from nowhere at
Laura's elbow, and saluting her with an empressement that was
due, if Laura had only known it, to the harmony of her flounces.
Laura eyed the little Gaston kindly. "You are of the South,
are you not?" she said in her soft French, the French of a
Frenchwoman but for a slight stiffness of disuse: "and are you
comfortable here, Gaston? You must tell me if there is anything
you want."

Gaston was grateful less for her solicitude than for the sound
of his own language. When she had left the room he caught up a
photograph, thrust it back into his master's dressingcase, and
spat through the open window--"C'est fini avec toi, vieille
biche," said he: "allons donc! j'aime mieux celle-ci par
exemple."

But, though Laura laughed, it was with indulgence. While Isabel
and Lawrence were conversing among the juniper bushes, the
Bendishes had given Mrs. Clowes a sketch of Hyde which had
confirmed her own impressions. Although he liked good food and
wine and cigars, he liked sport and travel too, and music and
painting and books. His eighty-guinea breechloaders were dearer
to him than the lady of the ivory frame. Who was the lady of the
ivory frame? Gaston would have been happy to define with the
leer of the boulevards the relations between his master and
Philippa Cleve. Gaston had no doubt of them, nor had Frederick
Cleve; Philippa had high hopes; Lawrence alone hung fire. If he
continued to meet her and she to offer him lavish opportunities
the situation might develop, for Lawrence was not sufficiently
in earnest in any direction to play what has been called the
ill-favoured part of a Joseph, but in his heart of hearts, this
Joseph wished Potiphar would keep his wife in order. And,
strange to say, Yvonne was not far wide of the mark. She
believed that Joseph was a sinner but not a willing one: and Jack
Bendish, a little astray among these feminine subtleties,
assented after his fashion--"Hyde's rather an ass in some
ways," he said simply, "but he's an all-round sportsman."

Thus primed, Laura was able to draw out her guest, and dinner
passed off gaily, for Bernard Clowes was no dog in the manger,
and listened with sparkling eyes to adventures that ranged from
Atlantic sailing in a thirty-ton yacht to a Nigerian rhinoceros
shoot. Nor was Lawrence the focus of the lime-light-he was