hat
tomorrow brought its program of a train journey, a matinee and an
evening performance.

"Paul," said Marcia as they walked back, "I have to leave a call for
seven and catch a train at eight-thirty. There's no use in your getting
up. No, please don't, and please don't hunt me out again." At the door
of the hotel she said enigmatically, "What a wonderful balance Nature
might have struck between your brother's strength and your--winning
personality. Good-night."

* * * * *

The Duke de Metuan's failure to rehabilitate his impaired fortunes with
Burton gold had left a more durable scar upon his optimism than any of
the similar scars of the past. Mary Burton had been such a splendid
combination of charm and opulence that a marriage with her would have
made a pleasure of necessity. The Duke in his earlier stages of
disappointment had felt first the pangs of a lover, and only in
secondary degree the chagrin of a depleted exchequer. Several months had
found him inconsolable, and when desperation had closed upon him he had
wedded an estimable lady whose wealth was less dazzling than Mary's, but
ample none the less. Her personal paucity of allurement was a handicap
which his philosophy ignored as much as possible. In private he
sometimes made a fastidious grimace, and accepted the inevitable.

Yet the duke had long been an epicure in life's pleasures, and though he
must yield to the demands of his creditors, much as a young prince must
yield to the edicts of his chancellery in making a required marriage, he
did so with mental reservations. He had no intention of permitting that
necessity to cast a perpetual cloud over his days and nights.

He had found it possible to leave his estate in Andalusia, where his
duchess elected to remain with an imaginary malady from which she
derived much melancholy pleasure, and in Nice he had been overjoyed to
meet a charming acquaintance in the person of Loraine Haswell.

Loraine, too, was willing to have these hours which hung heavy
alleviated with companionship, and Nice is a place where hours lend
themselves to the process of being lightened.

There was a waiter at one of the esplanade cafes where the tables look
out over the whiteness of the sea-front and the sapphire of the bay, who
regarded his grace and madame as his regular clients. He knew without
telling what _hors d'oeuvres_ and vintages the dark gentleman affected
and at what pastries the beau