ostess with their
hands full of red and white flowers. The "Savages" had raided the table
decorations, and presented the spoils to their guests.

Cassavetti intercepted Anne.

"Good night, Miss Pendennis," he said in a low voice, adding, in French,
"Will you give me a flower as souvenir of our first meeting?"

She glanced at her posy, selected a spray of scarlet geranium, and
presented it to him with a smile, and a word that I did not catch.

He looked at her more intently than ever as he took it.

"A thousand thanks, mademoiselle. I understand well," he said, with a
queer thrill in his voice, as of suppressed excitement.

As she passed on I heard him mutter in French: "The symbol! Then it is
she! Yes, without doubt it is she!"

CHAPTER III

THE BLOOD-STAINED PORTRAIT

In the vestibule I hung around waiting till Anne and Mrs. Dennis
Sutherland should reappear from the cloak-room.

It was close on the time when I was due at Whitehall Gardens, but I must
have a parting word with Anne, even at the risk of being late for the
appointment with my chief.

Jim and Mary passed through, and paused to say good night.

"It's all right, Maurice?" Mary whispered. "And you're coming to us
to-morrow, anyhow?"

"Yes; to say good-bye, if I have to start on Monday."

"Just about time you were on the war-path again, my boy," said Jim,
bluffly. "Idleness is demoralizing, 'specially in London."

Now this was scarcely fair, considering that it was little more than a
month since I returned from South Africa, where I had been to observe
and report on the conditions of labor in the mines; nor had I been by
any means idle during those weeks of comparative leisure. But I knew,
of course, that this was an oblique reference to my affair with
Anne; though why Jim should disapprove of it so strongly passed my
comprehension. If Anne chose to keep me on tenter-hooks, well that was
my affair, not his! Still, I wasn't going to quarrel with Jim over his
opinion, as I should have quarrelled with any other man.

Anne joined me directly, and we had two precious minutes together under
the portico. Mrs. Sutherland's carriage had not yet come into the
courtyard, and she herself was chatting with folks she knew.

There were plenty of people about, coming and going, but Anne and I
paced along out of the crowd, and paused in the shadow of one of the
pillars.

She looked ethereal, ghostlike, in her long white cloak, with a filmy
hood t