me as a _mauvais
sujet_."

She smiled, and her eyes sought the lace-work held in her busy
fingers. Mademoiselle de Clericy had, I remembered, worn a piece of
such dainty needlework at her throat on the previous morning. I
learnt to look for that piece of ever-growing lace-work in later days.
Madame was never without it, and worked quaint patterns, learnt in a
convent on the pine-clad slopes of Var.

"Monsieur Howard," went on the Vicomte, "is a gentleman of position in
his own country on the east coast of England. He has, however, had a
difference--a difference with his father."

The eyes were raised to my face for a brief moment.

"In the matter of a marriage of convenience," I added, giving the
plain truth on the impulse of the moment, or under the influence,
perhaps, of Madame de Clericy's glance. Then I recollected that this
was a different story from that tale of a monetary difficulty which I
had related to Madame's husband ten minutes earlier. I glanced at him
to see whether he had noticed the discrepancy, but was instantly
relieved of my anxiety, so completely was the old man absorbed in an
affectionate and somewhat humble contemplation of his wife. It was
easy to see how matters stood in the Clericy household, and I
conceived a sudden feeling of relief that so delicate a flower as
Mademoiselle de Clericy should have so capable a guardian in the
person of her mother. Evil takes that shape in which it is first held
up to our vision. Incompetent and careless mothers are in fact
criminals. Mademoiselle de Clericy had one near to her who could at
all events clothe necessary knowledge in a reassuring garment.

"A marriage of convenience," repeated Madame, speaking for the first
time. "It is so easy to be mistaken in such matters, is it not?"

"As easy for the one as for the other, Madame," replied I. "And it was
I, and not my father, who was most intimately concerned."

She looked at me with a little upward nod of the head and a slow, wise
smile. One never knows whence some women gather their knowledge of the
world.

"Monsieur knows Paris?" she asked.

"As an Englishman, Madame."

"Then you only know the worst," was her comment.

She did not ask me to be seated. It was, I suspected, the hour for
dejeuner. For this household was evidently one to adhere to
old-fashioned customs. There was something homelike about this
pleasant lady. Her presence in a room gave to the atmosphere something
refined and woma