' said the
Countess, with an arch smile.

'But, I can understand being in love with von Elmur! He is--difficult.
Men no longer in their first youth are much the more interesting. The
love of a young man is simple, he says what he means; but when he grows
older it is not so. By that time he has gathered memories,
enlightenment, experiences; and he begins by thinking he knows one
through and through. And why?--because he knows other women--and them
how imperfectly! As if we were not as various as the colours in the old
Sagan diadem! Each woman is made differently, and each reflects her own
colour. To teach a man--old enough to appreciate it--this little fact
about ourselves is, I assure you, never a dull amusement.'

Valerie paused before she spoke.

'Now I know why you are married, Isolde!'

'Ah, yes; but I was too young to realize that Sagan is a bear who cannot
be taught to dance. I had just left school. I could not choose. But you,
Valerie, you have a future before you! Poor Anthony, like all other
young men, is desperately in earnest, he gives one the blues. I know he
already bores you; but von Elmur----Ah, that is altogether another
affair!'

Madame de Sagan sank down beside a little buhl-table, and tapped on it
impatiently with her slight fingers. Against the light of the afternoon
glow she watched the outline of Valerie's cheek. For Mdlle. Selpdorf had
returned to her contemplation of the landscape. A curl of blue smoke
from among the trees on the nearer bank of the Kofn held her gaze and
suggested thoughts, which she was taking up one by one, as it were, and
examining soberly enough.

Rallywood had been stationed at Kofn Ford when first Isolde made his
acquaintance. The girl recalled a description she had heard of the tall
young Englishman galloping along the flat road to the rescue of the
pretty, terrified Countess, whose Arab had been merely cantering along,
capering now and again from sheer light-heartedness and without
malicious intent, until its timid rider chose to scream, when it reared
and started with flying hoofs towards the marshes. Valerie went on to
picture Rallywood holding the trembling woman on her saddle till her
escort and grooms overtook them, and at the picture the girl's lip
curled and quivered with angry scorn--of a sudden she hated and despised
them both, but especially she despised Rallywood for having succumbed to
Isolde's shallow beauty! Thus it will be seen that Mdlle. Selpdorf w