rdinary man, who aroused such eager interest and who
was spoken of on every side as a fabulous and more or less impossible
being: one morning, Don Luis Perenna dressed himself and went the rounds
of his house.

It was a comfortable and roomy eighteenth-century mansion, situated at
the entrance to the Faubourg Saint-Germain, on the little Place du
Palais-Bourbon. He had bought it, furnished, from a rich Hungarian, Count
Malonyi, keeping for his own use the horses, carriages, motor cars, and
taking over the eight servants and even the count's secretary, Mlle.
Levasseur, who undertook to manage the household and to receive and get
rid of the visitors--journalists, bores and curiosity-dealers--attracted
by the luxury of the house and the reputation of its new owner.

After finishing his inspection of the stables and garage, he walked
across the courtyard and went up to his study, pushed open one of the
windows and raised his head. Above him was a slanting mirror; and this
mirror reflected, beyond the courtyard and its surrounding wall, one
whole side of the Place du Palais-Bourbon.

"Bother!" he said. "Those confounded detectives are still there. And this
has been going on for a fortnight. I'm getting tired of this spying."

He sat down, in a bad temper, to look through his letters, tearing up,
after he had read them, those which concerned him personally and making
notes on the others, such as applications for assistance and requests for
interviews. When he had finished, he rang the bell.

"Ask Mlle. Levasseur to bring me the newspapers."

She had been the Hungarian count's reader as well as his secretary; and
Perenna had trained her to pick out in the newspapers anything that
referred to him, and to give him each morning an exact account of the
proceedings that were being taken against Mme. Fauville.

Always dressed in black, with a very elegant and graceful figure, she had
attracted him from the first. She had an air of great dignity and a grave
and thoughtful face which made it impossible to penetrate the secret of
her soul, and which would have seemed austere had it not been framed in a
cloud of fair curls, resisting all attempts at discipline and setting a
halo of light and gayety around her.

Her voice had a soft and musical tone which Perenna loved to hear; and,
himself a little perplexed by Mlle. Levasseur's attitude of reserve, he
wondered what she could think of him, of his mode of life, and of all
that th