s bow.

"Madame la Comtesse?" he said, with a faint note of inquiry. The
Comtesse's inclination answered him. "Madame la Comtesse honors me. I
am happy to be of service."

He bowed to Elsie, who gave him "Good evening;" the footman set
forward a chair for him and withdrew. His white hair stood about his
head like a delicate haze; under it, the narrow wise face was brick-
red, giving news of his long service under the sun of North Africa.
He was short and slight, a tiny vivacious man, full of charming
formalities, and there was about him something gentle and suave, that
did not quite hide a trenchant quality of spirit. He stood before
them, smiling in a moment of hesitation, half paternal, wholly
gallant.

"Madame la Comtesse is suffering," said Elsie, in the spacious French
idiom. "There is little that she can say. But she thanks Monsieur
most sincerely for giving himself this trouble. But please be
seated."

He was active in condolences at once. "I am most sympathetic," he
said seriously. "And for the trouble"--he nicked it from him--"there
is no trouble. I am honored."

The Comtesse bowed to him. "Monsieur is very amiable," she murmured.

He hitched up his chair and sat down, facing the pair of them. His
shrewd eye took the measure of the Comtesse and her infirmity,
without relinquishing a suggestion of admiration. He was a man
panoplied with the civil arts; his long career in camps and garrisons
had subtracted nothing of social dexterity. There was even a kind of
grace in his attitude as he sat, his cane and hat in one hand, with
one knee crossed upon the other. He spent a moment in consideration.

"It is of the Capitaine Bertin that I am to speak? Yes?" he asked
suddenly.

The Comtesse stirred a little in her chair. "Yes," she answered, in a
voice like a sigh--a sigh of relief, perhaps.

"Ah!" He made a little gesture of acknowledgment. "Le Capitaine
Bertin! Then Madame will compose herself to hear little that is
agreeable, for it is a tale of tragedy." His eyes wandered for a
moment; he seemed to be renewing and testing again the flavor of
memories. Under his trim moustache the mouth set and grew harder.
Then, without further preamble, he began to speak.

"Bertin and I were of the same rank," he said, "and of much the same
age. There was never a time when we were friends; there stood between
us too pronounced a difference--a difference, Madame, of spirit, of
aim, and even of physique. Bertin was large