principally about prize poultry.

"_Comme elles sont assommees avec leurs poules!_" says the Marquise de
Caillac, who chances to be present at this infliction, and gazes in
stupefaction at a dowager duchess who has driven over from twenty miles
off, who wears very thick boots, her own thin gray hair, water-proof
tweed clothing, and a hat tied under her double chin with black strings.
"_Un paquet!_" murmurs Madame de Caillac; "_un veritable paquet!_"

"_C'est la vertu anglaise, un peu demodee_," says Lord Iona, with a
yawn.

Gervase stays on as well as Brandolin, somewhat bored, very much
_enerve_, but fascinated, too, by the presence of his Russian Ariadne,
and stung by the sight of Brandolin's attentions to her into such a
strong sense of revived passion that he means what he says when he
declares to his cousin that the wife of Sabaroff was the only woman he
has ever really loved. Her manner to him also, not cold enough to be
complimentary, but entirely indifferent, never troubled, never moved in
any way by his vicinity or by his direct allusions to the past, is such
as irritates, piques, attracts, and magnetizes him. It seems to him
incredible that any woman can ignore him so utterly. If she only seemed
afraid of him, agitated in any way, even adversely, he could understand
what was passing in her mind; but he cannot even flatter himself that
she does this: she treats him with just such perfect indifference as she
shows to the Duke of Queenstown or Hugo Mandeville or any one of the
gilded youths there present. If he could once see a wistful memory in
her glance, once see a flush of color on her face at his approach, it is
probable that his vanity would be satisfied and his interest cease as
quickly as it has revived; but he never does see anything of this sort,
and, by the rule of contradiction, his desire to see it increases. And
he wonders uneasily what she has done with his letters.

CHAPTER X.

Lord Gervase was eight years younger when he wrote those letters than he
is now, and he has unpleasant recollections of unpleasant passages in
them which would compromise him in his career, or at least get him
horribly talked about, were they ever made sport of in the world. Where
are his letters? Has Madame Sabaroff kept them? He longs to ask her, but
he dare not.

He does not say to his cousin that he has more than once endeavored to
hint to Xenia Sabaroff that it would be sweet to him to recall the past,