usly. George
Featherly, standing with his back to the mantelpiece, smiled unkindly.

"If it's the old affair," said he, "you may as well throw it up, Bert.
She's leaving Paris tomorrow."

"I know that," snapped Bertram.

"Not that it would make any difference if she stayed," pursued the
relentless George. "She flies higher than the paper trade, my boy!"

"Hang her!" said Bertram.

"It would make it more interesting for me," I ventured to observe, "if I
knew who you were talking about."

"Antoinette Mauban," said George.

"De Mauban," growled Bertram.

"Oho!" said I, passing by the question of the `de'. "You don't mean to
say, Bert--?"

"Can't you let me alone?"

"Where's she going to?" I asked, for the lady was something of a
celebrity.

George jingled his money, smiled cruelly at poor Bertram, and answered
pleasantly:

"Nobody knows. By the way, Bert, I met a great man at her house the
other night--at least, about a month ago. Did you ever meet him--the
Duke of Strelsau?"

"Yes, I did," growled Bertram.

"An extremely accomplished man, I thought him."

It was not hard to see that George's references to the duke were
intended to aggravate poor Bertram's sufferings, so that I drew the
inference that the duke had distinguished Madame de Mauban by his
attentions. She was a widow, rich, handsome, and, according to repute,
ambitious. It was quite possible that she, as George put it, was flying
as high as a personage who was everything he could be, short of enjoying
strictly royal rank: for the duke was the son of the late King of
Ruritania by a second and morganatic marriage, and half-brother to the
new King. He had been his father's favourite, and it had occasioned
some unfavourable comment when he had been created a duke, with a title
derived from no less a city than the capital itself. His mother had been
of good, but not exalted, birth.

"He's not in Paris now, is he?" I asked.

"Oh no! He's gone back to be present at the King's coronation; a
ceremony which, I should say, he'll not enjoy much. But, Bert, old man,
don't despair! He won't marry the fair Antoinette--at least, not unless
another plan comes to nothing. Still perhaps she--" He paused and added,
with a laugh: "Royal attentions are hard to resist--you know that, don't
you, Rudolf?"

"Confound you!" said I; and rising, I left the hapless Bertram in
George's hands and went home to bed.

The next day George Featherly went with me to the s