w."

I looked across the room curiously. There was not a single redeeming
feature in the man's face except, perhaps, the suggestion of brute,
passionate force which still lingered about his thick, straight lips
and heavy jaw. The woman by his side seemed incomprehensible. I saw
now that she had eyes of turquoise blue and a complexion almost
waxenlike. She lifted her arms, and I saw that they, too, were covered
with bracelets of light-blue stones. Louis, following my eyes,
touched me on the arm.

"Don't look at her," he said warningly. "She belongs to
him--Bartot. It is not safe to flirt with her even at this distance."

I laughed softly and sipped my wine.

"Louis," I said, "it is time you got back to London. You are living
here in too imaginative an atmosphere."

"I speak the truth, monsieur," he answered grimly. "She, too,--she is
not safe. She finds pleasure in making fools of men. The suffering
which comes to them appeals to her vanity. There was a young
Englishman once, he sent a note to her--not here, but at the Cafe de
Paris--at luncheon time one morning. He was to have left Paris the
next day. He did not leave. He has never been heard of since!"

There was no doubt that Louis himself, at any rate, believed what he
was saying. I looked away from the young lady a little reluctantly. As
though she understood Louis' warning, her lips parted for a moment in
a faint, contemptuous smile. She leaned over and touched the man
Bartot on the shoulder and whispered something in his ear. When I next
looked in their direction I found his eyes fixed upon mine in a
steady, malignant stare.

"Monsieur will remember," Louis whispered in my ear softly, "that I am
responsible for his coming here."

"Of course," I answered reassuringly. "I have not the slightest wish
to run up against any of these people. I will not look at them any
more. She knew what she was doing, though, Louis, when she hung blue
stones about her with eyes like that, eh?"

"She is beautiful," Louis admitted. "There are very many who admire
her. But after all, what is the use? One has little pleasure of the
things which one may not touch."

We were silent for several minutes. Suddenly my fingers gripped Louis'
arm. Had I been blind all this time that they had escaped my notice?
Then I saw that they were sitting at an extra table which had been
hastily arranged, and I knew that they could have only just arrived.

"Tell me, Louis," I demanded eagerly,