l cup, on a charger large enough to have
upheld the head of John the Baptist, she looked again. In five minutes I
had finished the _consomme_, and it became painful to linger. Rising, I
made for the door, which seemed a mile away, and I did not lift my head
in passing the table where the lady sat behind her roses. I heard a
rustling as I went by, however, a crisp rustling like flower-leaves
whispering in a breeze, or a woman's silk ruffles stroking each other,
which followed me out into the hall.

Then the pleasant voice I had heard near the lift spoke behind me:

"Won't you have your coffee with me in the garden?"

I could hardly believe at first that it was for me the invitation was
intended, but turning with a little start, I saw it repeated in a pair
of gentle gray eyes set rather wide apart in a delicate, colourless
face.

"Oh! thank you!" I hesitated. "I--"

"Do forgive me," went on the lady, "but your face interested me this
morning, and as we're all rather curious about strangers--we idle ones
here--I took the liberty of asking the manager who you were. He told
me--"

"About the Princess?" I asked, when she paused as if slightly
embarrassed.

"He told me that you said you had come to Cannes to be her companion. He
didn't tell me she was dead, poor woman, but--there are some things one
knows by instinct, by intuition, aren't there? And then--I couldn't help
seeing, or perhaps only imagining, that you looked sad and worried. You
are very young, and are here all alone, and so--I thought perhaps you
wouldn't mind my speaking to you?"

"I'm very grateful," I said, "for your interest. And it's so good of you
to ask me to have coffee with you." (I was almost sure, too, that she
had hurried away in the midst of her luncheon to do this deed of
kindness.)

"Perhaps, after all, you'll come with me to my own sitting-room," she
suggested. "We can talk more quietly there; and though the garden's
quite lovely, it's rather too glaring at this time of day."

We went up in the lift together, and the moment she opened the door of
her sitting-room I saw that she had contrived to make it look like
herself. She talked only about her books and photographs and flowers
until the coffee had come, and we seemed better acquainted. Then she
told me that she was Lady Kilmarny--"Irish in every drop in her veins";
and presently set herself to draw me out.

I began by making up my mind not to pour forth all my troubles, lest she