r expressive eyes.

John Tullis opened his own eyes very wide. "You don't mean to say that
he is--he is in peril of any sort?"

She looked at him a long time before speaking. He could feel that she
was turning something over in her mind before giving utterance to the
thought.

At last she leaned nearer to him, dropping the ash from her cigarette
into the receiver as she spoke slowly, intensely. "I think he is in
peril--in deadly peril."

He stared hard. "What do you mean?" he demanded, with an involuntary
glance over his shoulder. She interpreted that glance correctly.

"The peril is not here, Mr. Tullis. I know what you are thinking. My
father is a loyal subject. The peril I suggest never comes to
Graustark."

She said no more but leaned forward, her face whiter than its wont. He
frowned, but it was the effect of temporary perplexity. Gradually the
meaning of her simple, though significant remark filtered through his
brain.

"Never comes to Graustark?" he almost whispered. "You don't--you can't
mean your--your husband?"

"I mean Count Marlanx," she said steadily.

"He means evil to Prince Robin? Good Heavens, Countess, I--I can't
believe it. I know he is bitter, revengeful, and all that, but--"

"He is all that and more," she said. "First, you must let me impress you
that I am not a traitor to his cause. I could not be that, for the
sufficient reason that I only suspect its existence. I am not in any
sense a part of it. I do not _know_ anything. I only feel. I dare say
you realise that I do not love Count Marlanx--that there is absolutely
nothing in common between us except a name. We won't go into that. I--"

"I am overjoyed to hear you say this, Countess," he said very seriously.
"I have been so bold on occasion as to assert--for your private ear, of
course--that you could not, by any freak of nature, happen to care for
Count Marlanx, whom I know only by description. You have laughed at my
so-called American wit, and you have been most tolerant. Now, I feel
that I am justified. I'm immeasurably glad to hear you confess that you
do not love your husband."

"I cannot imagine any one so stupid as to think that I do love Count
Marlanx, for that matter, that he loves me. Still, I am relieved to hear
you say that you are glad. It simplifies the present for us, and that is
what we are to discuss."

"You are very, very beautiful, and young, and unhappy," he said
irrelevantly, a darker glow in his cheeks. She