ere alone
together.

"Yes. One, Mdlle. Zelie, the 'chevalier's' only daughter, a slack-wire
artist; the other, Signor Scarmelli, a trapeze performer, who is the
lady's fiance."

"Ah, then our friend the chevalier is not so young as the picture on the
bill would have us believe he is."

"No, he is not. As a matter of fact, he is considerably past forty, and
is, or rather, was, up to six months ago, a widower, with three
children, two sons and a daughter."

"I suppose," said Cleek, helping himself to a buttered scone, "I am to
infer from what you say that at the period mentioned, six months ago,
the intrepid gentleman showed his courage yet more forcibly by taking a
second wife? Young or old?"

"Young," said Narkom in reply. "Very young, not yet four-and-twenty, in
fact, and very, very beautiful. That is she who is 'featured' on the
bill as the star of the equestrian part of the program: 'Mdlle. Marie de
Zanoni.' So far as I have been able to gather, the affair was a love
match. The lady, it appears, had no end of suitors, both in and out of
the profession; it has even been hinted that she could, had she been so
minded, have married an impressionable young Austrian nobleman of
independent means who was madly in love with her; but she appears to
have considered it preferable to become 'an old man's darling,' so to
speak, and to have selected the middle-aged chevalier rather than some
one whose age is nearer her own."

"Nothing new in that, Mr. Narkom. Young women before Mdlle. Marie de
Zanoni's day have been known to love elderly men sincerely: young Mrs.
Bawdrey, in the case of 'The Nine-fingered Skeleton,' is an example of
that. Still, such marriages are not common, I admit, so when they occur
one naturally looks to see if there may not be 'other considerations' at
the bottom of the attachment. Is the chevalier well-to-do? Has he
expectations of any kind?"

"To the contrary; he has nothing but the salary he earns, which is by no
means so large as the public imagines; and as he comes of a long line of
circus performers, all of whom died early and poor, 'expectations,' as
you put it, do not enter into the affair at all. Apparently the lady
did marry him for love of him, as she professes and as he imagines;
although, if what I hear is true, it would appear that she has lately
outgrown that love. It seems that a Romeo more suitable to her age has
recently joined the show in the person of a rider called Signor Antoni