pidly westward, down the broad, still seething
Boulevard du Temple, and, as he suddenly became aware with a sharp pang
at his heart, past the entrance to the quiet mediaeval square, where,
only four short days ago, he and Peggy walking side by side, had held
the conversation which was to prove pregnant of so much short-lived joy,
and of such long-lived pain.

Like so many modern Americans, to whom every material manifestation of
wealth has become distasteful, Laurence Vanderlyn had chosen to pitch
his Paris tent on the top floor of one of those eighteenth-century
houses which, if lacking such conveniences as electric light and lifts,
can command in their place the stately charm and spaciousness of which
the modern Parisian architect seems to have lost the secret. His
_appartement_ consisted of a few large, airy, low-pitched rooms, of
which the stone balconies overlooked the Tuileries gardens, while from a
corner window of his sitting-room Vanderlyn could obtain what was in
very truth a bird's-eye view of the vast Place de la Concorde.

Very soon after his arrival in Paris the diplomatist had the good
fortune to come across a couple of French servants, a husband and wife,
who exactly suited his simple and yet fastidious requirements. They were
honest, thrifty, clean, and their only fault--that of chattering to one
another like magpies--was to Vanderlyn an agreeable proof that they led
a life quite independent of his own. Never had he been more glad to know
that this was so than to-night, for they greeted his return home with
the easy indifference, and real pleasure, very unlike the surface
respect and ill-concealed resentment with which a master's unexpected
appearance would have been received by a couple of more cosmopolitan
servitors.

With nerves strung up to their highest tension, forcing himself only to
think of the present, Vanderlyn put on his evening clothes. It was still
wanting some minutes to midnight when he left the Rue de Rivoli for the
Boulevard de la Madeleine. A few moments later he was at the door of the
club where he was sure of finding, even at this time of night, plenty of
friends and acquaintances who would be able to testify, in the very
unlikely event of its being desirable that they should do so, to the
fact that he had been there that evening.

* * * * *

L'Union is the most interesting, as it is in a certain sense the most
exclusive, of Paris clubs. Founded i